Power of Reason, Power of Magic
by Kimiko Nishimura
Summary: Even though they were twins, Kaito hardly knew Shinichi. All he wants to do right now is bond with him, but it's hard to do that when evil organizations are targeting you both. Kind of OOC; high school AU. Rating T to be careful; mostly K plus
1. Sidewalks

_Kimiko: Before you start reading, please note that this is one of my first attempts at writing fanfiction. Any comments will be greatly appreciated!  
><em>

**Sidewalks**

The crowds were all shouting his name. "Kai-to! Kai-to! Kai-to!" He was rubbing his gloved hands behind the curtains, about to appear on stage in a flurry of white pigeons. He had peeked out a little while before and everyone was there: his classmates, his mother, and of course, his twin brother Shinichi. He heard the mirror ball spinning, about to release the pigeons.

"Kai-to! Kai-to! Kai-to!"

"KAITO!"

Kaito Kuroba was snapped out of his daydream by a sudden smack to the back of his head. "Ow! What are you doing Ahoko?"

"Kaito, you didn't even hear a word I said!" His friend Aoko glared at him, swinging her bookbag around as if waiting to take another, more lethal shot at his head.

"You're right, I didn't," Kaito admitted. He broke into a toothy grin. "But I'm sure you'd be more than willing to say it again because you want me to hear it, right Wearer-of-the-Flowery-Panties?"

Aoko turned red and swung her bag at him again. At least it wasn't a mop. Kaito laughed and began teasing her more. Aoko shouted back at him and chased him down the street.

After running a block or so like this, Aoko sighed and slowed down. "What I WANTED to tell you, BaKaito, is that I've joined the Martial Arts Club. I was wondering if you were going to join any clubs. There's a lot of time left, but I wanted to know if you were considering any."

Kaito thought about this for a while. A club might be fun, but he would much rather work on his magic. He was determined to make his stunning debut (that would make him famous overnight!) when he graduated, but he still needed more work on personalizing his act. He wanted something new that would blow any competition away. After all, the best magician in the world couldn't be compared to anyone else, right?

"No, I don't think I'm going to," he mused, mentally going over the list of clubs the school offered. "Wait, MARTIAL ARTS CLUB? I didn't know the school had one! What are you doing in there? Learning how to hit people with mops?"

Aoko huffed. "No, I'm learning self-defense from the other members. And as for your first question, it was just made this year. Jodie-sensei is our coach. Ran-chan, Kazuha-chan, and Suzuki-sempai needed another person to get it started and I thought it would be fun to join."

"That's only four students. Who else is in it?" So far, all these were girls and it would be scary having a club full of gorilla-girls teaching each other how to beat defenseless magician-boys up.

Aoko smiled with a blush beginning to cover her face. "The captain is Kyogaku-sempai." Kaito recognized the name of the idol of the senior class. Almost every girl in the senior class and many in the junior and freshman classes had crushes on him. But his heart belonged to Sonoko Suzuki, and hers belonged to him, no matter how much she flirted with other guys. It was kind of romantic, if you liked that kind of stuff.

"Figures," Kaito muttered. Kyogaku was the school's up-and-coming martial arts legend. But he, Kaito Kuroba, would definitely outshine his senior when he graduated next year!

"By the way, Kaito, is your brother on the soccer team this year? The school sure could've used his talent last season. Ran and I were talking about this morning."

"Beats me." Kaito said, trying to remember if his brother had told him anything but "Have fun at school" that morning, even though they were in the same class. "He doesn't really mention that stuff to me." Kaito almost added "_Anymore"_ but stopped himself. His Poker Face was still intact, but he had hit upon a startling truth: Even though they were twins, he and his brother had an abnormal relationship. They had grown apart over the years. Now, Shinichi seemed more distant than ever. Kaito wasn't even sure if he was still taller than Shinichi! He would have to check when he got home.

Aoko shrugged, noticing that Kaito seemed to be thinking about things. She thought, '_It's either about something useless or more of his magic-pranks.'_ She said goodbye to him as she walked to her front door. Kaito waved, still thinking about Shinichi.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko and Flanagan would love any feedback and constructive criticism!<strong>


	2. Twins

****_Kimiko: I feel inspired for no reason right now, so I'm going to put this up. If it doesn't seem interesting right now, please just stay around for a few more chapters and it will get better! _

_Flanagan: She forgot to mention this before, but we don't own the characters or anything like that. It belongs to Gosho Aoyama, who actually gets paid for writing.  
><em>

**Twins**

Shinichi and Kaito were twins, but they only seemed alike in general appearance and academic ability. They were both geniuses, but Kaito was outgoing and popular for it while Shinichi was more reserved and kept to his own friends.

At first, they had both been interested in similar things. Back when their father, Touichi Kuroba, was alive, they were both interested in learning magic from him. But Kaito was much faster at learning it, even if Shinichi was able to understand the mechanics behind it. Then, when their father died in an accident onstage, Shinichi stopped practicing magic tricks altogether, saying that Kaito was better at it and their dad would want him doing something better suited to him.

Kaito became surrounded by magic and it became his life. His room was filled with books of histories and theories behind different magics. He loved trying new things every day. There really was a lot more to magic than amateurs thought. Kaito was no amateur now, though. He was a professional at magic, while still keeping up with his schoolwork.

Meanwhile, Shinichi would read a lot and go out more. He would always watch Kaito's practice shows for Shinichi and their mother, Chikage Kuroba, and try to figure out how the tricks happened. Kaito would practice until he was sure his twin couldn't solve it and then show it to him. If his brother was stumped but impressed, it was a success. If he had guesses, it needed more work. If Shinichi was able to see the trick, Kaito had to come up with new approaches or new tricks.

But all this time, Kaito never really paid too much attention to his brother's activities. He knew Shinichi was reading too much and he had started soccer, but he didn't attend many of the matches. His twin had told him it wasn't necessary to come if he wanted to practice magic and even encouraged him to work harder on his acts.

A few years ago, Shinichi had tried to tell Kaito about mystery stories, but Kaito honestly found them boring. The thieves were much more interesting, but Shinichi would go to lengths explaining how the detective figured out the tricks and arrested them, which was kind of irritating. Shinichi realized Kaito was bored with them after a few weeks, and stopped, spending more time alone in his library of a room.

Now, Kaito wondered if he should get more involved in his brother's life. They did homework together, both displaying their genius ability in the speed by which they got it done. But then Kaito would start on his own pursuits and Shinichi would usually go to his room to read or set off on his skateboard to visit a friend.

Come to think of it, Kaito wasn't even sure who all of Shinichi's friends were. He himself would tell his twin all about his own friends, but Shinichi would mostly listen.

This felt weird. Kaito had never really felt like this before. It was like he had been unknowingly excluded from his twin brother's life. Well, Kaito never like being out of the loop. He would start being closer to Shinichi, starting now.

He didn't want be a stranger to his own twin.

Kaito opened the door to his house, noticing that neither his mother nor Shinichi were home yet. _'I guess he's still at school,' _he thought. _'Well, I can probably start by asking him about his friends when he comes home. We'll do our homework together as always, but this time, I'm going to do more than learn about school stuff.'_

* * *

><p>Kaito sighed, looking out the window in his room at the last rays of the sunset. He had only found out Shinichi had gone to hang out with Heiji Hattori, one of the kids in their shared class. Kaito knew that Heiji was formerly from Osaka, he liked kendo, he was pretty smart, and he was a loud and outgoing person. Kaito supposed it was good that his brother was around such a lively person.<p>

But it was still only a tidbit of information. Shinichi had only said that they were doing research together for a project in Mr. Akai's class, then he had 'conveniently' decided it was time to get a drink of water to help them think.

That information was too vague.

Mr. Akai taught Independent Studies.

To top it all, Shinichi's exit made Kaito think that he was hiding something.

Kaito shook his head. He needed to clear his mind. He could spy/find out more in school tomorrow. He opened the window beside him and felt a strong breeze. It would be dark in a few minutes. An idea came to his already brilliant head. Grinning to himself, he grabbed a white backpack from under his bed, pulled it on over his light sweater, and crawled out of the window. He climbed onto the high roof and checked the straps coming from the backpack.

He found the place where the wind was strongest. Kaito rubbed his hands together eagerly.

He pulled the string that would open his homemade hang-glider and leapt off the roof, soaring over the darkened neighborhoods like a white phantom. He needed to think up a plan for tomorrow, but that could wait until he had some fun in the free, cool skies.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Please review! [as a Christmas present?]<br>**


	3. Parallel Story: Discovery

_Kimiko: This is a short side story explaining what went on with Shinichi that day. It's my Christmas present for Kaida-14Kage, one of my favorite authors!_

**Chapter 3: Parallel Story—Discovery**

_Earlier that day, while Shinichi is walking with Heiji to the Hattori house_

"So, we're going to have the club meetings after school every other day?" Heiji asked his best friend, Shinichi.

"Yeah, that sounds okay. I'll text the others about it. We'll start tomorrow," He paused, remembering something. "Oh, wait, the trip to the science museum is tomorrow. If it runs late, we might only be able to set up the basic rules for the club."

"That's fine," Heiji said. "It's not like we'll really be doing too much. I mean, it's only a school club, not a real—" He stopped, both what he was saying and where he was going. Shinichi almost ran into him.

"What's wrong?" Shinichi asked, looking around. Heiji pushed him back behind a pile of boxes, crouched down and pointed down the alley they were standing outside of.

Two men in black suits were talking with another man in a lighter business suit. Heiji could hardly hear what they were saying, but both boys could guess what was going on when they saw an exchange of a unmarked white envelope and a plain suitcase. One of the men in black opened up the case to reveal lots of money inside. The man in the business suit quickly looked inside the envelope and looked panicked. He seemed to be begging the other men for something, but one of the men showed him the gun he was holding. The businessman stopped, and instead listened to what the other men were saying.

Shinichi had his phone out in a heartbeat, taking pictures of the illegal actions. Heiji, meanwhile looked around for any of their partners. Something like this could be dangerous. If they were found, they might be killed. After a few moments, the men in black started to walk out of the alley, towards the place where Shinichi and Heiji were hiding. The two boys quickly moved away from the alley.

Heiji pulled Shinichi into a nearby antique shop. The door shut just as the two men emerged from the alley. They watched out the store window as the men walked across the street and disappeared from their view.

After a few heart-pounding seconds, Heiji looked over at Shinichi. He was breathing heavily from released apprehension. "Hey, Kudo, do you realize what we just saw?"

Shinichi nodded, sharing his friend's anxious and ecstatic feelings. "Yeah! This is going to be the first case of the Beika High Detective Club!"

Heiji peeked out the door of the shop, checking once more if it was clear of the black-clad men. He walked out and Shinichi followed.

Heiji looked down the alley again. By luck, the businessman was still there, but he was walking out right towards them. The boys pretended they were just walking down the street. The man passed them and started walking in the opposite direction.

Shinichi faintly heard one thing the man muttered: "It's okay, I'll get the rest at Tropical Land next week on Saturday."

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Do you like it? The next one will be much longer and it'll explain more of the setting. Like I said, this is a short side story [if you read the stuff at the top]. And just so you know, Kaito isn't KID yet and Shinichi doesn't work with the police.<br>**


	4. Who Are You, Really?

_Kimiko: I worked hard on this one for you! I'll try to have the next one out soon.  
><em>

**Who Are You, Really?**

Kaito leaned back in his chair, waiting for the teacher to finish calling roll. Mr. Akai, the Independent Studies [and homeroom] teacher usually let them do whatever they wanted as long as they were working on something. It was like a study hall, but they had to do a final assessment project to prove they actually were studying. It was in this short class that Kaito researched a lot of different topics, often finding inspiration for his magic.

Today, Kaito decided he would pay more attention to what Shinichi was doing. His brother was always in the corner of the room on one of the many computers, working on who knows what with someone. Once Mr. Akai was done, the teacher told the students his normal expectations and sat down at his own computer to look over several news sites.

Kaito pretended to read his "History of Spiritual Ceremonies" and looked over towards his brother's desk. Heiji Hattori had already moved his desk to sit next to him. Heiji took out a notebook and Shinichi got a blue flash drive. The two began working with a determined atmosphere.

They looked like normal research partners. Kaito considered walking over to see what exactly they were researching. It couldn't hurt.

He set down his book and silently waltzed past the groups of gossiping girls and ended up behind Shinichi and Heiji. Not wanting to startle them too much, he put his hand on Shinichi's shoulder and said, "Hey~, Shinichi!"

Shinichi jumped and spun around to give an annoyed glare at his twin. "What is it, Kaito?"

"Just wanted to know what you were working on." Kaito said, noticing the title of the site they were currently on: 'Suicide or Murder? A Baffling Mystery Leaving No Clues!' He was surprised, but kept his straight face. "I thought if you were any more into your research, the computer would eat you up!"

At this, Heiji laughed out loud, but Shinichi was too serious for that. He sighed and shook his head. "I don't think this site will help up much anyway." He looked distantly at the window. "Heiji, we would probably be better off setting up a field research schedule to check for solid evidence."

Kaito wondered at these words. "What are you trying to find out?" He sat down in a chair next to them. "Could I be of any help?"

Shinichi shook his head. "No, Kaito, this is something our club is working on," he said bluntly.

"Oh? What club are you in?" Kaito kept pressing for details.

"It's one we founded this year: the Detective Club!" Heiji explained.

_'Another new club? _Kaito thought.

Heiji continued, "Right now, we're—"

"Not doing anything yet," Shinichi interrupted, shooting a glance towards his friend. "We finally got all the paperwork in and our meetings can start after school today. Sorry if you didn't know about this, Kaito, but I'm pretty sure you're not interested in detective stuff."

Kaito felt like he had been slapped. Was this the only reason Shinichi was away from home more often? Was he avoiding him? Was it just because Shinichi had a conception that his brother wasn't interested in his interests and therefore not interested in him as a person?

Still, he didn't want to give up. Brothers didn't do that, or at least they weren't supposed to if they wanted to keep a close relationship. Kaito faked a smile and said, "Well, it's true I don't get as much of a thrill out of picking apart crime scenes like you, Shinichi, but I do like to know what you're doing every now and then."

Shinichi nodded. "I understand, Kaito." It seemed like he was about to say something else when Mr. Akai announced it was almost time for the class change. The class collectively groaned. The next class was History, taught by Ms. Vineyard. She wasn't boring, but she always demanded answers from the people who weren't paying attention. She was like a hawk in the way she could pick out exactly who was drifting into daydreams.

* * *

><p>Through most of the day, Kaito wasn't able to talk to Shinichi for more than a few seconds. Even during lunch, Shinichi and Heiji left the classroom quickly. Heiji had stayed behind long enough to tell Kaito that they were going to meet with their club supervisor, Ms. Haibara. She was the rumored Chemistry teacher who taught seniors and forced many of them to be serious despite any ideas of senioritis they had conjured for themselves.<p>

Finally, during Gym with Mr. Camel, Kaito decided he would have the opportunity to talk to his brother seriously about their relationship. It may have just been his own thinking, but Shinichi almost seemed to be avoiding talking with him ever since their conversation that morning.

No, it couldn't be. He must have been over-thinking the situation.

Kaito caught up to Shinichi as they were running around the track.

"Hey Shinichi, can I talk to you right now?" Shinichi shrugged and nodded, turning his attention to Kaito.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush because you're probably going to try to dismiss whatever I say. Are you avoiding me?"

Shinichi almost faltered in his pace, but he quickly recovered. "You think I'm avoiding you?" Kaito waited for a serious response. "Well, truthfully, I am."

"Why?" Kaito wanted to yell. He was frustrated. This was like trying to convince a wild pigeon to walk straight. "Does it have to do with something I did?"

Shinichi looked straight at him. "Kaito, why are you suddenly trying to get into my life? I thought you were happy with how things were."

"I'm your brother," Kaito argued. "Shouldn't I have the right to know what's going on with my twin? I just don't want to be a stranger to you."

Shinichi stopped. They had reached the end of their run. He bit his lip. "Wait one moment," he said. He walked over to the teacher. "Mr. Camel, could you excuse Kaito and me from the class for a while? We need to see the nurse." Mr. Camel nodded and the two brothers walked off the field.

Kaito glanced at Shinichi. He looked like he was trying to sort through something that he didn't understand completely himself. But he was willing to wait till they got to Dr. Araide's office to talk.

Wherever Shinichi was comfortable, Kaito would follow. He just wanted a chance to see his brother for what he really was.

* * *

><p><em>During that day…<em>

Aoko leaned over towards Ran. "Hey, Ran-chan, do you think something's up with Kaito? He hasn't done anything strange all day."

Kazuha turned around in her seat and joined in. "Yeah, I've been wondering about that, too. Do you think he's planning something crazy, or is he just focusing on school for a change?"

Ran shook her head. How was she supposed to know? "I don't know. We'll just keep an eye on him for now. Maybe he's trying to keep everyone uneasy and he's not actually going to do anything at all."

Aoko considered the possibility. "That sounds like something he would do."

In fact, for once, Kaito had forgotten about pranking the class.

* * *

><p><strong>Flanagan: This is a sneak peek at the next chapter<strong>

"Listen, Kaito, there's a world of differences between you and me."

"You don't have to be like me to be my brother."

**Kimiko: Please review! I get happier with every review I get. Happy Kimikos make chapters faster!**


	5. Between You and Me

_Kimiko: This one has a much happier ending, Kaida-14Kage! I wanted to get it out soon because you keep saying the story is sad. Maybe I just can help but write family-angst...  
><em>

_Flanagan: I would like to take this moment to remind the readers that we don't own anything but our crazy minds and that this story will definitely improve as we go along. _

_Kimiko: Yeah! We haven't talked much about those mysterious men in black much, have we? That'll be mentioned next chapter. This is all Kaito and Shinichi!  
><em>

**Between You and Me**

When the brothers reached Dr. Araide's office, Shinichi gave a quick explanation to the doctor, saying they needed some quiet time alone. Dr. Araide soon gave the impression that he knew what was happening.

"You boys can take as long as you need. If anyone else comes asking for me, I'll be in the teacher's lounge." He walked out, leaving Shinichi standing with his back to Kaito. The thud as the door closed echoed in the now-silent room.

Kaito wanted to say something, anything to his brother. But if he messed up now, Shinichi might clam up, even to his current friends. Kaito didn't want that. All he wanted was to know his brother. During the day he realized that he might have been selfish these past few years since their dad died. He had always asked Shinichi to see what he was doing, but he hadn't done the same for Shinichi. When Shinichi was playing soccer during middle school, Kaito only went to a few games because he found the sport less than interesting. He had quickly bored of Shinichi's enthusiasm for mysteries and he often put his headphones on when Shinichi was practicing his violin.

But then again, apart from the mystery books, Shinichi had never once asked Kaito to involve himself in Shinichi's affairs. It was like Shinichi had tried to distance himself.

Shinichi was turning around to face Kaito now. He took a deep breath and let it out smoothly.

"Kaito, it's not like I don't like you or anything. I love you. You're my brother. But—" Shinichi bit his lip, looking dejectedly at the floor. Kaito kept his own sincere face. "Listen, Kaito, there's a world of differences between you and me. I'm just not like you."

"Is this why you've been pushing me away for the past few years?" Kaito asked softly.

"No! I mean, not really. It's just…" he broke off again. Kaito kept silent this time. Shinichi was wrestling with a way to put his reasons into words that wouldn't cause confusion. That was one thing he always did. He would spend time thinking up the answer and spend just as much time figuring out how to say it.

"It kind of has to do with…Dad. And…what he said before he." Kaito's eyes widened. Their dad's death. Of course. The last time they had acted like the identical twins they were was when they tried to fool their father the day of his accident. As Kaito remembered, their dad had only figured out who was who when Shinichi slipped up on a card trick he had suddenly asked them both to perform. Kaito, being the natural, had performed it flawlessly. Shinichi, on the other hand, flipped the wrong card at the end of their act. It hadn't really gotten to Shinichi at the time because their dad said that everyone had their talents and that he had the talent of telling his boys apart.

"After that day, I wanted one of us to—well—finish Dad's act. To be his successor, you know. But, I just don't have the talent that you do in that regard, Kaito. I decided then that I would stop magic, so people wouldn't bring you down while comparing us."

"Do you think that would make me upset?" Kaito demanded. This was stupid reasoning. And he thought his brother was smart! "So you wanted to be different than me that badly?"

"I am different than you." Shinichi responded flatly. "You're the one of us who can be most like Dad. I can't. I have to find my own way."

"I'm not necessarily going to be exactly like Dad!" Kaito grabbed his brother's shoulders and forced Shinichi to look at him. "He's just my inspiration! I thought he was yours too."

"He is my inspiration." Shinichi's eyes narrowed as he gave off a hostile feeling. Kaito clung on to him tightly. "He said that everyone has their talents. I have some talents and you have others."

"So you think that just because we're a little different, you have to force distance between us?" Kaito felt like he would either punch his brother or break down crying. Shinichi looked away to something to the side. "Shinichi, you don't have to be like me to be my brother. Even though we're twins, we can be different." He loosened his grip on Shinichi. "No matter what you do, people are still going to compare us. That's just how the world is."

"I know." Shinichi said quietly. "I—I guess I've been kind of stupid." Suddenly he looked straight at Kaito and smiled honestly. "It's dumb of me to think I could hide myself from such a troublesome, tenacious brother."

"You have a troublesome and tenacious brother?" Kaito said in mock surprise. "Who is he? Why haven't I met this person?" Both brothers laughed. Seizing the golden opportunity, Kaito pounced onto his twin and put him into a playful headlock. They squirmed together on the floor, laughing uncontrollably. They hadn't done this for years and both wanted the moment to go on for as long as possible.

Kaito finally released Shinichi but they remained on the floor of the office for a minute or so, each listening to the other trying to regain his breath.

"Hey, Kaito?" Shinichi said, still a little breathless.

"What?"

"I can't believe how much I've missed being like this. I guess it was really stupid to do all that distancing."

"You're not stupid," Kaito argued. "Dad's death was a stressful time for both of us. It happened. It's over. But from now on, please don't hide from me. I want to be your brother, but I can't do that if you're so distant."

"Yeah," Shinichi said. "I'll still critique your practices, but this time, I'll act more like a brother than the robot I've been."

Kaito rolled over to face Shinichi. "And I'll be a better brother too. I'll help you be a detective or a soccer player or a violinist or whatever you want to be. And you'd better keep watching my magic practice. I swear; I'll show you the greatest mysteries on Earth! Even if you're a great detective, you won't be able to figure them all out!"

Shinichi smiled and nodded, accepting the promise and the challenge. An air of understanding silence had enveloped the twins for a few minutes, when suddenly he remembered something.

"Hey, Kaito,"

"Huh?"

"Don't we have to get back to P.E.?"

"I'm sorry. I can't hear you over the sound of how heartwarming this moment is."

"Ha-ha," Shinichi said dryly and tried to get up to leave. Kaito pounced on him like a giant cat again.

"Hey~, Shinichi," Kaito sang with a predatory grin. "You promised not to be a robot, so be a brother and tell me about the club you made with Heiji Hattori!"

Shinichi rolled his head back in resignation. "Okay, but then we're going back to class." Kaito nodded. "Hattori and I are the co-presidents. The other members are all freshmen: Genta Kojima, Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya, Ayumi Yoshida and Eisuke Hondou. The sponsor is Ms. Haibara, the senior Chemistry teacher. We just started, so we're trying to find out what we're going to be doing this year. That's it, so please let me go. I want to get back before Mr. Camel sends someone to check on us."

Kaito got off his brother and stood up first, reaching down to pull Shinichi off the floor.

"All right, Mr. I-Love-School-So-Much-I-Have-No-Life, we can go back."

Shinichi was indignant as they walked out of the room. "I do have a life. Just because I don't play pranks on the class all day doesn't mean I'm boring."

Kaito froze in mid-step. "Oh! Shinichi, you reminded me! I haven't done any fun stuff today! I'll have to settle for a big bang in Mrs. Kudo's Humanities class tomorrow. I can already think of something cool that even she might enjoy!"

Shinichi shook his head and rolled his eyes. Kaito was really worked up now. But truthfully, he did always look forward to seeing what Kaito would do next.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: I got so happy finishing this chapter! I could hardly hear anything over the sound of how heartwarming it was! <strong>

**Oh, by the way (if you couldn't tell), this setting doesn't really fit the real plotlines or places. Because I couldn't pick which high school to use (Teitan and Ekoda), I made up Beika High and threw a bunch of characters into it. It's probably a lame name for the school, but whatever. **


	6. Mirror, Mirror

_Kimiko: I only saw this mistake after I published the last chapter. Shinichi was supposed to say, "It kind of has to do with…Dad. And…what he said before he __**died**__." I guess it was kind of obvious, but I feel really embarrassed that I made that mistake. I'll read over the chapter more carefully this time._

_Flanagan: Yeah, you crazy kid, no one likes it when you make mistakes._

_Kimiko: But weren't __**you**__ supposed to __**edit**__ it?_

_Flanagan: L-l-learn some responsibility, girl! You were the one rushing it out!_

_Kimiko: Okay… (T^T)_

_Flanagan: Well, enough of that. Here's the highly anticipated [we wish] next chapter._

**Mirror, Mirror**

Mr. Camel actually hadn't noticed that Kaito and Shinichi were gone for longer than a nurse break should last. When they got back to the track, they found everyone standing in an unorganized assembly in front of Mr. Camel and Principal Kisaki.

Principal Kisaki had just begun to address the group, with a slight frown on her face. "Listen, I have an announcement for all of you. The science museum trip that was supposed to occur today was postponed due to a minor problem at the museum." There was a collective groan from the assembly. "The museum has assured us that it was nothing too serious and we've already rescheduled the trip for later this month. I'm sorry because I'm sure a lot of you were looking forward to it. But right now, seeing as the teachers for your later classes didn't have anything planned for this day, you juniors can either leave early or stay and study for other classes." This brightened everyone up in a heartbeat. The students began talking to each other eagerly, making plans for their unexpected freedom.

Ms. Kisaki knew that most of them would take her first option and leave. This went against her philosophy of running the school in a way that would encourage education as much as possible, but it was unavoidable. The teachers already said they didn't want to be swamped with kids who wanted to leave anyway. She sighed as she walked away from the crowd, having already made the school-wide announcement over the loudspeaker.

Kaito was thrilled. True it wasn't even a half day (almost a quarter of the school day), but they still had a lot of free time. He looked around for Shinichi, who had managed to almost disappear and reappear next to Heiji. Kaito figured he would probably try for more research for their Detective Club. One option down. He could always play around with him later, anyway.

Instead, he decided to look for Aoko. She was talking with Ran and Kazuha about what they wanted to do with the extra time. They all wanted to go visit some store's new collection that just came out. Kaito would have gone with them, but it would most likely mean carrying packages until he was too bored and decided to vanish in a cloud of smoke. Tempting as it might be now, he decided against it. Second option down.

Kaito suddenly came up with a great idea. He _had_ promised to be a better brother, but he never said anything about not stalking. Besided, didn't stalking your siblings mean you were concerned for their well being? He was concerned for his twin's plethora of gravity [AKA Shinichi was still too stiff].

He would see what Shinichi was doing, take pictures of it, and then Photoshop/improve them to tease the detective-nuts whenever he saw fit.

What a great idea.

* * *

><p>Shinichi and Heiji were in the library now. Kaito slipped past the librarian, Mr. Kudo, who was distracted with a new book, and took a seat at one of the desks in the Reference section. There was only one other girl in the section, probably a senior by the looks of her. If he paid more attention to her, he might have seen a pretty girl with long reddish hair and a very mature face. She was reading a large, ancient-looking book and occasionally writing down notes on a sheet of plain white paper.<p>

But Kaito was here to spy on Shinichi.

Kaito peeked over the rows of books and, just like that morning, he could see the two working like company employees. Boy, talk about a workaholic pair. These guys were bad influences on each other. This free time should have been used to enjoy the bliss of having nothing to do! He really hoped the Detective Club would end up as a simple place to read those mysteries Shinichi liked so much. Doing too much research might scare future members away. It might also dry up Shinichi like a raisin.

He remembered quickly why he was here. "I'll put a smile on your face again, Shin-chan," he said quietly, using the old nickname for his brother that his mother hadn't used for years. He held up his phone and took about three pictures to ensure that at least one would be clear enough to work with. Kaito could already imagine how he would 'improve' the atmosphere captured in the photo.

He heard a whisper behind him. The senior girl was faintly saying something. Was it just to herself, or was she talking to him? He partially turned around and listened closely.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, Shows Magician standing tall. Mirror, mirror in the hand, Shows Twin crumbling into sand."

The girl wrote all of this down on her paper. She then placed it carefully in the giant book and shut it suddenly, making Kaito jump at the loud noise, along with everyone else in the library. At the front desk, Mr. Kudo blankly looked around for the source of the noise, but gave up and returned his attention to his book. The girl glided over to the librarian and asked for a pass. He signed it absentmindedly, seeing as his eyes never left the book's pages, and the girl silently left the library.

Kaito mulled over the words the senior girl had said. They made no sense. Kaito tried to ignore the whole matter, but there was something in that girl's tone that made him feel like the words were specifically directed towards him. But he had never met this girl. Why would she be talking to him?

Kaito decided he had gotten enough material and left the library, too.

* * *

><p><em>That afternoon, in the Detective Club's room…<em>

Shinichi and Heiji each considered the best way to explain to their club members what they had seen the previous day. They had finished discussing how their meetings would run from now on, and all the members were enthusiastic to start club activities as soon as they could.

"Uh," Heiji stuttered. "So! We going to let Kuroba, the club president, brief everyone on ideas for the Detective Club's first case!" After all, Shinichi _had_ been the one who suggested they try to resolve it through club activities.

Shinichi glared at Heiji. That idiot was also one of the club presidents! "Well," he began, "We haven't found out too much more about this, but yesterday, Hattori and I witnessed an illegal transaction. We're trying to track down any clues of who the people involved are, but we're still short of details. For now, I think we should wait on this until Hattori or I come up with something solid. Besides, this is a dangerous case. I didn't want anything like this to start with, but, like I said, it was something that we saw."

Ayumi asked, "Why don't we tell the police?"

"Because we don't have very much solid information on this yet," Shinchi explained. "Once we know more, we'll bring all of it to the police so they can officially arrest the criminals. After all, we're only amateur detectives, and we definitely aren't vigilantes."

Heiji nodded. "So for now, we'll keep any information we find stored on both the club computer and Shinichi's flash drive for backup. In other matters—"

"One moment, Hattori-sempai," Mitsuhiko said. "Were we going to wait for Ms. Haibara?"

"No," Shinichi answered for Heiji bluntly. "She told me she was working on a special joint project with Dr. Agasa. She said it was fine to have the first club meeting without her." He paused to think about that. Ms. Haibara often seemed to be looking for ways to spend more time with Dr. Agasa, even though she would flatly deny any such assessment of her activities. It must have been a mutual-respect thing, because she was much younger than the older man. She probably liked his ideas in certain science fields, despite their different respective topics, Physics (Agasa) and Chemistry (Haibara). Nothing to concern himself over, anyway.

"There you have it." Heiji finished. "As for other cases, I didn't find many solid facts or leads online or in the library, so we might just spend either this Saturday or next Saturday looking around town. I know it sounds kinda childish, but we might find something if we know where to look. Anyway, are those days fine with you guys?"

"Either day is fine with me." Genta said. "My dad only needs me to help in his store on weekdays."

"Yeah, I don't have anything planned, either," added Mitsuhiko.

Ayumi agreed with him. "Mm-hm. Me neither."

Eisuke pulled out his daily planner and, after looking through it, said, "Well, I can spare the mornings and early afternoons of both, I guess."

"This Saturday is fine, but next Saturday won't work for me at all." Shinichi announced.

Heiji seemed surprised and asked, "Why not, Kuroba?" He hadn't really anticipated Shinichi being the only one who had an issue with the days. Well, there was still this Saturday.

Shinichi gave a mysterious smile. "I have an appointment I really can't miss."

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Ooo, now it's getting somewhere…<strong>

**Oh, I didn't cut off the trip because I forgot about it or anything like that! (sweating and feeling even more embarrassed) **

**In all seriousness, I had planned to get rid of it from the beginning. But I kinda messed the timing up during the last chapter [again, I should be more serious while editing]. I mean, why would anyone want to go on a less-than-half-day field trip? Unless they would miss the dreaded Mr. Okiya's Trigonometry lesson! He-he-he!**

**Please review! I love all the numbers that tell me how many people are reading [or at least looking at] my story, but I know you'd rather be known by a pen name than a number! At least, I would...**

**Thanks for telling me, Kaida-14Kage. I fixed it  
><strong>


	7. Missing Person

_Kimiko: I feel like I rushed the action in this one a bit…but I really wanted to get to the plot that I had in mind. And I would have had this out sooner, but my dad took us to DC. I was annoyed at the traffic, but I got to stare at Andy Warhol's "Shadows" for at least twenty minutes. Ah~ I cried…it was so moving...  
><em>

_Kimiko: And sorry, but this moves back to sadness. Maybe I should change the theme to Hurt/Comfort [even though this is a drama-kinda thing]. Tell me what you think.  
><em>

**Missing Person**

Kaito liked to remember each day by its highlights. He was a generally optimistic person who loved to figuratively shine a light on the bright side of things to make them even brighter.

For instance, Thursday was the day he finally crashed his brother's boring life. He started his work on editing the pictures he took of his workaholic twin but soon got bored and instead set up a pillow-filled pitfall for Shinichi to walk into when he came through the door.

Friday was the day he crashed the school's miniature train, normally used for school festival exhibitions, into Mrs. Kudo's desk as she was discussing overarching themes in typical Italian Renaissance artwork. She would have complained at the distraction, but by the time she stopped laughing herself silly, Kaito had already gotten the whole class involved in helping to expand the track out into the hall. They had to put it away before lunch on the orders of Principal Kisaki, but it was still a lot of fun while it lasted.

Saturday was the day he sneakily followed Shinichi around the city, leaving smilies made out of M&Ms in his path until his brother had had enough and told the other club members that he was going home. Kaito then begged to go somewhere with Shinichi and finally convinced him to see a movie with him. When they got to the theater, Kaito made him sit through two+ hours of some old _Gomera_ re-run, while pretended to be a scared little kid as Shinichi burned with embarrassment next to him.

Sunday was the day their mother took them both to visit her college friend's family in the country. They all had a large picnic outside, went on a walk through a cheery park, and Kaito ended the day with a surprise firework display, much to the alarm of the local fire station.

And it went on.

Shinichi, on the other hand, would often lose track of time and even go so far as to forget what day it was. In fact, Kaito could not remember a year when Shinichi actually remembered his own birthday, though he would be reminded by their mother about all the other birthdays in their family (hers as the first priority and Kaito's as the second).

He seemed to see his life as a not-fun-in-Kaito's-eyes work/study/practice/read timetable that didn't stop. He would run on autopilot, too focused on what he was doing to pay attention to anything else, like his own needs for food or rest. Though, Kaito quickly learned the ways to get him to focus on the real world, and more importantly: Kaito.

He could grab a Holmes book from Shinichi's library of a room, misread a line from somewhere inside it loud enough for his brother to hear, and then run off with it, watching in amusement as Shinichi chased after him to reclaim his property.

Or, he could seize his brother from behind and wrestle with him in more amusement as Shinichi tried to get back to what he was doing. Usually, this ended in Kaito somehow hiding his twin's work and Shinichi completely forgetting what he was doing.

And it went on.

* * *

><p>It was Friday again. Kaito was glad that Shinichi was walking home with him for once (he kept saying he had to stay for the Detective Club and Kaito would get bored waiting for him at home and set up a prank at home for him to walk into). Aoko and Ran were at their own Martial Arts Club practice. Aoko had showed Kaito what she was learning a previous day, and it was pretty frightening to him. Shinichi simply commented that she was turning into another Ran.<p>

Kaito turned his thoughts to his plans for that evening. He had already planned another practice show for his mother and Shinichi. He was looking forward to their reactions to it!

"Hey, Shinichi, are you ready to be blown away by my awesome skills tonight?" He threw his arm around his brother's shoulder.

Shinichi tried to remove the unwanted appendage with little success. He gave it up and instead decided to challenge Kaito. "I'm not going to be blown away. Whatever you come up with, I'll figure out in no time!" His face was set with determination. Kaito mirrored it.

Kaito loved this. Whoever said Shinichi wasn't like him? They had the same competitive, unbeatable spirit, even if they did express it in different ways.

* * *

><p>The show was an incredible success if you asked Kaito. He had finally found out how to keep his brother on his toes, literally, when he suspended both him and his mother on wires during his finale. Because of it, Shinichi was too busy to think about the tricks behind, well, Kaito's tricks.<p>

Chikage Kuroba, their mother, was laughing and clapping enthusiastically by the time Kaito was done. Kaito bowed deeply and thanked them like the professional he wanted to be.

Shinichi cracked a smile and said, "Well, Kaito, I guess you win. I couldn't figure out any of those new ones. I might be able to later, but you win for now. I guess I have to work more on my observation and deductive reasoning if I want to be on top of your game."

Kaito grinned. "By the time you figure out these cheap tricks, I'll have much better ones that even your Holmes couldn't work out!"

His hero now mocked, Shinichi scowled and crossed his arms hotly. "Oh? You think you're that good, huh? Well, you're wrong! I'll prove that the power of reason trumps trickery!"

"And I'll show you that the power of magic can overcome anything!" Kaito knew that this was all in fun, but he was actually getting somewhat serious. That wasn't good. He wanted a light atmosphere. After all, it was the start of the weekend!

"But it's not even real magic, it's just tricks."

"That's where you're wrong, Shin-chan!" Shinichi frowned at the old nickname and it encouraged Kaito to express his point even more. "Magic is when one moment, you expect one thing and then in the next moment, the magician pulls something totally cool and unexpected out! It's 'Now you see me, now you don't!'" At the last word, Kaito vanished in a puff of white smoke. Shinichi and Chikage looked around, shocked that he was actually able to completely disappear and wondering where he would pop out next.

"And now you see something new!" Kaito exclaimed, now wearing a white suit similar to the ones their dad would wear while performing. If he had stood still for a moment, both Shinichi and their mother would note the schocking similarity between them, minus Kaito's mess of hair. Shinichi would remember that their dad had said, _'Only the best magicians wear white to prove they're the best. Wearing white keeps everyone's attention on your actions__ and it means you can't get away with any slip-ups.'_

But Kaito didn't given them a moment to think. He jumped like a tiger onto Shinichi, knocking him to the floor. Chikage laughed again, watching the twins wrestle with each other just like they used to when they were much younger.

She had wondered if they would never be the same after her husband's death, but it seemed they had recently reconciled and come together like never before. Kaito was brighter than ever and Shinichi was smiling outside of the times he read his Holmes books.

'_Ah, Touichi'_ she thought, feeling nostalgic because of the suit Kaito was wearing, _'If only you could see our boys now. You'd be so proud of them.' _

All she wanted was for them to be happy. Now, it seemed like as long as they had each other, they would be.

* * *

><p>An hour later, they had somehow moved onto the roof, looking at the moon and the lights of the city.<p>

"Kaito,"

"What, Shin-chan?"

Shinichi paused, but decided not to complain about the nickname. "I can honestly say that I've really been enjoying this time with you. I feel more complete, somehow."

"I can honestly say that I'm glad I can help you feel that way, Shinichi." Kaito said, forgetting about teasing for the moment.

* * *

><p><em>Two days later: Sunday, early morning…<em>

The house phone was ringing. Knowing that his mother had gone to great lengths to remove the 'infernal' device from her bedroom in order to 'preserve her beauty sleep', Kaito dragged himself out of bed to get it. Once out from under the covers, he immediately felt more awake, but he still liked to sleep in a bit later than 5 a.m. on weekends.

He found the nearest phone and answered, "Hello, this is Kuroba,"

"Kuroba," the familiar voice of Heiji Hattori began, "What—"

"If this is for Shinichi, he's not here right now," Kaito corrected. He had experienced this mistake often, as his voice sounded exactly the same as his brother's. "I'm Kaito."

"Oh, Kuroba's brother. You two sound so similar. Wait, he's not there? When he didn't answer yesterday, I thought he was doing something brotherish with you."

"With me?" Kaito repeated, wondering if Shinichi had finally decided to try to pull a trick on him. "No, he said he would spend the day with you. I thought he was going to stay at your house when he didn't come back last night."

"He didn't go back home last night?" Heiji didn't sound like he was joking. He sounded genuinely lost and concerned. "Well, he's not here. And he didn't spend the day with us. He said he was going to find out more about our case and that he would call back."

Kaito was confused and starting to get worried. Neither of them had all the facts and the key player in this scheme was AWOL. "Where are you right now? I need to talk with you face-to-face."

"I'm at my house with the other Detective Club guys." Heiji said quickly. "Yeah, I think we need to get some things sorted out."

Kaito hung up and rushed back to his room to change. Something strange was going on.

* * *

><p><em>Twenty minutes later...<em>

"All, right," Kaito said, "Just to get the facts straight: Shinichi said he was going somewhere, apparently to find out something, but he didn't tell you where exactly. He promised to text you about what he found, but he didn't. You assumed he was with me, and I thought, from what he told me the other day, that he was with you. But he's with neither of us, so...where would he be?"

Kaito looked at the others. Clearly, they were all just as in the dark as he was. Heiji, Genta, Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Eisuke all shared the nervous feeling of dread. There was an unspoken question in the air that no one wanted to ask. Eisuke finally got up his nerve to put it into words.

"Do—do you think…something happened to him?"

At that moment, Kaito's cell phone rang. He looked nervously at it.

_Shinichi_. He quickly pressed the speaker button and held it up.

"Hello?"

"Oh, so this _is_ a person. When I saw only numbers, I wondered what was going on in the brat's mind." It was a cold, deep, unfamiliar voice. It wasn't Shinichi.

"Who is this?" Kaito demanded, gripping the phone tighter to keep from dropping it.

"Someone who wants your Conan Edogawa to disappear," Kaito was confused, but he didn't interrupt. He might miss information that could be the the difference between Shinichi being okay and being hurt. "He's strayed into dangerous waters and we're fishing for him now. You'd better tell me where he is and what you know. You know what I mean by 'Blue Friday,' don't you? If _that_ doesn't show up before the event, we will find him and kill him slowly."

"Wait!" Kaito shouted. "No! What do you mean, you're fishing for him! What's Blue Friday?"

But the call had ended. Kaito looked at it with a hollow feeling and then glared at Heiji and the others.

"What have you guys been doing? What is all this? Is Conan Edogawa supposed to be Shinichi?" There was an awkward silence.

"Conan Edogawa is the alias for our club. We didn't expect Shinichi-sempai would use it while dealing with a dangerous person." Mitsuhiko explained. "We don't really know what he's done, or what that guy meant."

"Uh, actually, I have an idea of what's going on," Heiji said quietly. "About a week and a half ago, me and Kuroba, that is, Shinichi, saw an illegal transaction. I thought we were going to be careful and work as a team to get evidence against the guys we saw, but I guess that idiot went and did something dangerous anyway. I had no idea he had another clue to find them."

Kaito could hardly pay attention to anything else the club was saying. Two things were painfully definite:

Shinichi was missing. And he, Kaito, had no idea what was going on.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: I'll explain the 'numbers' thing both now and in the next chapter. In episode 400file 483, Shinichi was playing with numbers to make words. He made number combinations for all his contacts and used them instead of names. The bad guy just happened to pick Kaito's. And no, I haven't though up what the number is [yet?]**

**Flanagan: Hmm...Kaito was so worried about Shinichi that he didn't even realize he said, "fish"...interesting. Kimiko, I don't see any mistakes this time. You might have gotten better at this. (-.-)b  
><strong>


	8. Darkest Before Dawn

_Kimiko: I've been feeling that the longer I make my chapters, the less it's read by others. Is it just me?_

_Flanagan: No one but you cares. Instead, did anyone make the business man's Tropical Land statement (in Chapter 3)+ Shinichi's appointment on Saturday connection (in Chapter 6)? Guess you should have made it clearer, Kimiko. _

_Kimiko: Yeah…I'm working on improvement. In everything.  
><em>

**Darkest Before Dawn**

Kaito didn't know how many times he considered calling the phone again that day but he knew it was probably useless. Shinichi didn't have it with him anymore and the evil-sounding guy wasn't about to kindly explain the situation to him.

Still it was his only connection to Shinichi. And it had been cut off. Unless Shinichi decided to suddenly grace them with his presence, they were stuck.

"Um," Heiji began. Kaito had almost forgotten about these people in the daze he was in. Wasn't it their fault Shinichi had pretended to be a detective and had gotten in trouble? No, his brother probably would have done such a thing anyway. Kaito decided he would forgive these people for the moment. But once he had Shinichi safely back, he would take his revenge on the whole Detective Club. Oblivious to Kaito's inner monologue, Heiji said, "Kuroba, listen, we'll try to find him, I promise."

Kaito bit his lip, fighting back a sharp remark. "Of course we'll find him," he retorted. He just had to start thinking straight.

He could ignore the demands of the guy who called for now and whatever it was he said about a 'Blue Friday'. Their first priority was finding Shinichi, making sure he was okay, and hiding him from the guy who had his phone. Speaking of his phone—

"Do you know what he meant by the phone only having numbers?" Kaito directed his question to Heiji, the only one he expected would know the answer. Now, however, he wouldn't put much past his twin when it came to sharing secrets with friends and not loving brothers.

"Oh, Kuroba said that was something he did as a word game with numbers. When you say different sets of numbers out loud, it sounds like words. He makes nicknames for people with these sets and uses them as his contact information. He showed me mine once, but I don't remember it." Heiji paused for a moment, considering the situation they were in. "I guess it was just chance that the guy picked your number."

"It's a good thing because they can't find out who Shinichi-sempai really is or who we are," Ayumi pointed out. "That's might be the reason he did it in the first place, just in case." The others regarded it.

Kaito shook his head. "No, knowing Shinichi, he did it on a whim to make himself think more. But we can't talk about this now. Our first concern is figuring out where Shinichi would go if he thought he was being followed by dangerous people. He's smart and he probably thinks he's covered his path, but I think we can track him down."

Genta agreed solemnly, though it may have just seemed that way because he was so large. But he too was also smart. "Yeah, there are only a few places where a person like him would go in that situation. He probably wouldn't go to someone too close to him, like family and close friends, unless he was sure the ones chasing him wouldn't follow him. I mean, that's the first thing people think of when they panic, right and he wouldn't want to bring trouble to them later if he was followed."

_Besides, _Kaito thought, _He's using a fake name. It won't take them too long to figure out Conan Edogawa doesn't exist._

"We can also rule out places full of total strangers, like hotels," Mitsuhiko said. "That would leave too many traces and too many people he couldn't trust. And he wouldn't want them getting hurt in a conflict that arose. For the same reason, he probably wouldn't go to the police. He wanted concrete evidence and he didn't want to bring the police in until he was sure that as few people would get hurt as possible."

Kaito supposed that Shinichi didn't include himself when he calculated these 'as few as possible' victims. He was truly an utter idiot in regards to his own needs.

"But then it would be someone he knew could keep their mouth shut and help him investigate those people, but not someone who might catch their eyes if it was found out who he was," Eisuke murmured. "I don't think it would be anyone from school. That's going by students, of course. They're all either close to him or they hardly know him. But as for teachers…"

Kaito looked incredulously at him. "You think he trusts a teacher more than us?"

"No," Eisuke defended. "I think he is more comfortable leaving us in the dark while he tries to figure things out."

"Hondou is most likely right," Heiji backed up. "Kuroba's probably just as worried and nervous as we are. More so, seeing as he knows what these guys are capable of and he only has this person he's hiding with to depend on. He might even want to call us to tell us he's okay, but he doesn't want to leave evidence." Heiji scrunched up his face, thinking of a new possibility. "Maybe this is hoping too much, but he might be waiting for us. He can't forget that we're all capable of deducting like him, and we can usually follow his train of thought."

Kaito pursed his lips. Shinichi, waiting for them somewhere? Not likely; Shinichi was an idiot. He probably forgot that there were smart people looking on his side looking for him in his rush to hide from the smart people on the bad side. He always tended to overlook the good and focus completely on the bad.

No use in griping about that now, though. He had to track down that idiot soon.

"Well, it should be a teacher he knows, someone he can ask on a moment's notice to help out. It could even be one of the administrators," Kaito began. "Well, if we're talking about his current teachers, Ms. Kobayashi is a no. She's too flimsy and fragile. If you ask me, I wouldn't go to Mr. Camel for a similar reason. He's cool, but he's too nice-guy-ish and Shinichi probably wouldn't bother him."

"Ms. Vineyard's too mysterious and even Shinichi thinks she's creepy," Heiji continued. "Mr. and Mrs. Kudo are a possibility, but they seem too carefree to me. We can ask them, but I'm not sure if it'll turn up anything. But I think we should definitely check, uh, let's see: Mr. Akai, Ms. Starling, Mr. Okiya, Ms. Haibara, maybe Dr. Agasa and Principal Kisaki, and our guidance counselor Mr. Black."

Kaito thought about these. They were all plausible. "All right, we'll split into teams and check each of them out. We should be able to find all their addresses in the phone book."

* * *

><p>The teams had been decided quickly with little debate, as finding Shinichi was more important than arguing over who got to be with Ayumi Yoshida. They were: Kaito and Heiji, Genta and Ayumi, and Mitsuhiko and Eisuke. Their assigned teachers were decided based on the general area where those people lived. The first pair had Mr. Akai, Ms. Starling and Ms. Haibara. The second pair had to check the Kudos, Dr. Agasa and Mr. Okiya. And the third was in charge of Mr. Black and Ms. Kisaki, both of whom lived significantly farther away.<p>

As Kaito walked along the still-very-dark street towards the subway station with Heiji, he hoped that his brother didn't anticipate the fact that his thinking might be followed. He wanted to see his brother. He wanted to yell at him for being so stupid. He wanted to help.

He ached for the familiarity of two days ago, when they wrestled playfully on the floor while surrounded by leftover glitter and confetti. It seemed far away. Kaito didn't like feeling like this. He was an optimistic person, but now that his brother might be hurt, he felt like he had been hollowed out and filled with fear.

Kaito didn't want to feel hunted and to hide with his brother. He wanted to take down whoever was targeting Shinichi so he could get back to his normal life. He hadn't even shown Shinichi the picture he had finished improving.

Heiji couldn't help but notice how silent Kaito was. He was brooding just as much, but he needed to keep an eye out for suspicious people. They weren't positive that the guys who were after Shinichi weren't after them too. After all, Kaito looked just like Shinichi, minus their eye color and hairstyle. But guys who made demands like that didn't bother checking eye color before shooting.

There weren't too many people on the subway. Some people were going to work, but otherwise, it was still too early to be up and about. Heiji paid close attention to the intercom calling out the next station. He really didn't want to miss their stop just because they were worrying.

* * *

><p>"Well, that was a waste of time," Heiji muttered after Ms. Haibara slammed the door in their faces. She had hardly listened to their explanation. Instead, she quickly addressed that she didn't let male students <em>or <em>teachers into her house and gave them an earful of complaints about stalking teachers and waking them up early in the morning on weekends.

"I can't really see Shinichi going to her now, even if he was right outside the place." Kaito said as they began walking to the last house on their list. He was beginning to feel anxious about senior year with her as a teacher.

But he mentally told himself to forget Ms. Haibara, the evil-eyed Chemistry teacher from who-knows-where, for now at least. If Shinichi wasn't at this next house and the others had the same luck as them, he would have much bigger worries. They would also have to rethink their 'Finding Shinichi Kuroba' strategy.

* * *

><p>The last place was a moderate apartment for one. It was just the sort of place that you would normally walk past without a second look. Walking up to the plain door, Kaito could feel his heart beating through his chest. It was now or never. He reached up and knocked on the door. He could sense Heiji standing tensely next to him.<p>

Suddenly the door opened and Kaito found himself faced with the two killing ends of a shotgun and a pistol. He froze in surprise. Because, although it was a surprise that Mr. Akai was holding a shotgun, the one holding the pistol was Shinichi.

Kaito forgot the gun and rushed at Shinichi, letting out tears that he hadn't realized would come. "You idiot," he whispered. "You don't have to be afraid by yourself."

The sun began to rise. Shinichi dropped the pistol and sank to the floor, grateful for his brother's tight embrace.

* * *

><p><em>Kimiko: I think the ending might be a little unrealistic, but I really wanted that scene. Besides, who would come at dawn on a Sunday, besides suspicious people? They had the right to be suspicious.<em>

_If ya likes it, y'all can review, 'kay?_


	9. Together, We Can

_Kimiko: Flanagan, Kaida-14Kage thinks you're mean. Tell her you're not._

_Flanagan: I don't really mind. I'm just here 'cause you asked me to read over your stuff. I'm not here to make other people like me. Oh, and I'm not her brother, just a close friend. It makes me feel weird when you say that…like there's something, um, intimate between us._

_Kimiko: Aww…that's so cute, Flanagan! [Kisses him]_

_Flanagan: __=O.O=_

_Kimiko: Now you can stop telling me to work on boring school stuff, right?_

_Flanagan: U-um, I've gotta go somewhere. [Leaves] _

_Kimiko: Well, enjoy this chapter! I tried to make a Shinichi-style number-thing, but I'm not sure about it…[goes off to find Flanagan]_

**Together, We Can**

"Don't you ever do anything like this again," Kaito said, half angry, half relieved. Even though he had told himself that he would yell at Shinichi, seeing him holding a gun in fear for his life had shaken Kaito to the core. This situation was serious. "If you needed help, you should have called me, no matter what. In fact, you shouldn't have run in there alone, no matter how logical you thought it was."

Shinichi had a thousand perfectly logical excuses that he had prepared for this moment of confrontation, but somehow he couldn't remember any of them. Heiji had long since closed the door behind him and walked into the other room with Mr. Akai, but the twins were still on the floor, clutching on to each other as if each was the last solid thing on earth. Shinichi finally began to let go, but Kaito didn't, still hanging on. Shinichi might have been annoyed at this if it was in any other situation, but he was starting to understand.

People hurt when you disappear. People worry when you're silent. People hate it when they're not given information in order to supposedly protect them. It insults your relationship with them. It makes them worry more. It hurts them worse than bullets or stab wounds.

Shinichi now understood. Kaito had thought he might lose his only brother.

"Kaito," he whispered. "I'm not going to make any excuses. I'm sure you know what I was thinking. It was stupid. I was stupid. And now," his voice broke as the emotion overcame him at once, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Kaito. I broke that promise I made to you. I—"

Kaito put his hand over his brother's mouth to silence him. "That's enough," he said gently. "You don't have to explain it. Just don't do it anymore and make a real promise to me this time." Shinichi nodded.

This was far too scary an ordeal to endure alone. A similar experience might break both of them.

* * *

><p>Heiji, in the kitchen-dining room, finished calling the others. They would be coming to Mr. Akai's apartment soon. He figured Kuroba would want to talk about the information he found out now that they were with him. At the very least, they would berate him for being reckless and brainless.<p>

"Those two have an interesting relationship," Heiji heard Mr. Akai say, "They weren't close until recently and they are just now learning to trust each other. I suppose an extreme situation like this does accelerate growth in that regard, though." Distant as ever, he started taking out enough breakfast ingredients to feed all the people who were coming over. Heiji briefly wondered why Kuroba picked this odd teacher to hide out with.

Besides of course, the apparent fact that Mr. Akai had firearms on hand. He had quietly taken back his pistol from Shinichi's side when the brothers started the teary resolution to their familial issues.

"I hope Kuroba knows now that he has a bro who really loves him," Heiji said, to no one in particular. If Mr. Akai heard, he made no sign of it.

* * *

><p>The Detective Club members were somewhat unprepared for the impromptu breakfast, but once they smelled the odors wafting from the kitchen, they all realized how hungry they were. Running around town on an empty stomach in the early morning was only possible when adrenaline made you forget anything else.<p>

After gratefully thanking the teacher for the meal and eating, they began their discussion, remaining seated around the small table. There was a shortage of table chairs, but Mr. Akai brought in some from other rooms and then leaned against the refrigerator.

All eyes were on Shinichi. Kaito knew it was hard to begin, so he decided to help by making a statement and seeing where it led. "Shinichi, I guess you lost your phone at the place where you—did whatever—because we got a call from a strange guy."

Shinichi looked startled. "You did? Is that how you found out I wasn't coming home?"

"No we found that out when I called you and your brother picked up," Heiji said plainly. "The guy called when we had met with each other to try to figure out what you were up to. You're not really good at hiding your intentions, though you are good at hiding your trail."

Shinichi was distracted by another thought. "What exactly did the guy say on the call?"

"He said, 'Oh, so this is a person. When I saw only numbers, I wondered what the brat was thinking.'" Mitsuhiko was reciting exactly by reading off the small notebook he was holding. "Then Kuroba's brother asked who it was and he said, 'Someone who wants Conan Edogawa to disappear. He's strayed into dangerous waters and we're fishing for him now. You'd better tell me where he is and what you know. You know what I mean by 'Blue Friday,' don't you? If _that_ doesn't show up before the event, we will find him and kill him slowly.' We tried to get more information out of him, but he ended the call."

Shinichi frowned, making his forehead wrinkle up. "Tsuburaya-san, can I see your notebook?" It was handed over and Shinichi skimmed it several times, muttering under his breath. He finally sighed and set it down.

"Okay, I'll tell you everything I know right now. You all know that Conan Edogawa is the alias for our club. You also know that Hattori and I saw that exchange a week and a half ago. Well, I heard the man say something about getting the rest of his goods at Tropical Land next week on Saturday, or yesterday for us now. I wanted to see if I could at least see their faces, so I went there yesterday, hoping to find the businessman. He wasn't being all that stealthy and it was easy to find a place where I could listen and watch the interaction between him and the guys in black and still not appear suspicious. The rest of the transaction ended smoothly, or so I thought."

Kaito, Heiji, Genta, Mitsuhiko, Eisuke and Ayumi unconsciously leaned closer. They could tell that something unexpected had happened. Mr. Akai was silently taking in the information.

"The guys wanted to exchange the case of money on a roller coaster, and I managed to follow and get pictures of what they did. But they split up afterwards, so I could only pick one of them to follow. One had suddenly mentioned talking with another client about some 'event,' and I wanted to know more about that. So I followed him." Shinichi took a deep breath. "I found out from the conversation between the first guy and some lady he met with, about an event codenamed Blue Friday. It's a—a plan to bomb one of the police buildings in the city while another group attacks the other building and steals information."

"When is it?" Genta gasped, his eyes wide. Shinichi shook his head.

"I didn't hear about any other details, but the lady told the man that the rest of the information was on a drive and she gave it to him. Actually, it's this drive right here." He pulled out an old-looking flash drive without its cover and set it carefully on the table.

"How did you get it, Shinichi-sempai?" Ayumi asked.

"They left it on the table they were sitting at," Shinichi shrugged. "I guess they didn't want to make sudden moves so no one would notice the exchange. I took the initiative to kick a ball that was on the ground towards the table. It knocked the drive and the lady's bag off the table. I apologized like the clumsy teen I was pretending to be and picked up the bag, while swiping the drive, pulling off its cover and putting it on the table in its place. Then I tried to leave, but the lady said she wanted to say thanks for the help and asked for my name." He knew now that both of them suspected him. "What could I say? I gave Conan Edogawa's name. But I wasn't shot at while leaving the park, so they must have noticed a bit after I left the table. Or," he added darkly, "They think they can use my phone. They might have backup info."

Heiji whistled. "Still, that's a lot of good luck."

"I guess it makes up for my bad luck in everything else. Now they're after me and they even know how to get in contact with you, too, because I dropped my phone like an idiot."

"Now that you mention your phone," Kaito said, suddenly remembering something he had wondered about earlier. "What were those numbers the guys talked about?"

Shinichi bit his lip. "Nothing important," he said casually, trying to brush the matter under the rug.

"Oh, Shinichi, you're not telling us everything you know!" Kaito countered. "I wanna know!"

"Actually, I'm interested too." Mr. Akai said quietly. The students were surprised. They had almost forgotten he was there.

"Okay," Shinichi muttered, resigned. "Instead of putting names into my contact list, I have numbers."

"How do you come up with them?" Kaito pressed. He already knew the first part from the conversation that morning.

"Uh, just impressions of people. Sometimes their name." Shinichi really didn't want to venture into this territory. "Like our home phone is 9533. Nine for 'Ku', 6 for 'ro' and, because I use sets of four numbers, I used 33 for 'ba'. The closest to 'ba' is 'byaku,' 100. But I used 'san' and 3 instead. If you replace the 'A' in 'san' with an 'E' which is 3 backwards, you have 'sen,' 1000, but since it's one digit less anyway, when you take the last digit from it, it's 100, or 'byaku' for the 'ba' in Kuroba."

Utter silence. Heiji broke it, laughing and everyone except Mr. Akai followed soon afterwards.

"Wow, Kuroba, you really think that hard?"

Kaito took his chance. "Is the one for me that complex?"

"Not really!" Shinichi snapped defensively. "Yours is 0723. That guy probably saw it first on the list and selected it."

"What does it stand for?"

"Um, the 7 is from the 'chi' in the on'yomi pronunciation of osenai. Because you're an immature brother. 2 and 3 make 'ni-san,' a brother."

"And the 0?"

Shinichi really didn't want to say it, but he would rather get it out easily than have his troublesome twin drag it out, laying down suspense. "The 0 is 'rei' from the on'yomi pronunciation of tsumetai, cold. I thought you were cold for being so selfish."

But Kaito was smarter than that. He could tell that Shinichi wasn't telling the complete truth. "Tsumetai also means 'cool.' In English, cool means amazing or admired. So you still think I'm awesome!"

Shinichi didn't say yes but he didn't say no either.

* * *

><p>Mr. Akai reached for the drive and picked it up carefully. "This is probably encrypted, but it most likely has all of the information we need on it." He fingered the device for a moment before adding. "I can deal with getting into it."<p>

The students looked at him curiously. "You can, Mr. Akai?" Heiji Hattori asked.

Mr. Akai smiled and said, "My old job did things kind of like this. Don't ask about it though, or I might have to change schools. But if it will help the policemen, I'll definitely help out." A sudden idea occurred to him. "Moreover, I'm a teacher and it's my job to help out students. That's why I helped Kuroba. I'll consider this you boys' Independent Studies project, though we'll find out a way to make it school-appropriate."

Kaito and the Detective Club could hardly believe their ears. As Mr. Akai left the room to get his computer, Heiji elbowed Shinichi in the ribs.

"I guess your brother gives you good luck, Kuroba!"

Kaito, wanting to poke his brother too, did so and said, "See, Baka-Shin-chan? All you have to do is open yourself up to people. People aren't meant to work and worry alone. Together, we can fix this."

* * *

><p><strong>Flanagan: [feeling much better] Does anyone else want a teacher as cool as Mr. Akai? The end to this chapter is almost Deus ex Machina, but there are still problems later, from what I've heard from Kimiko. Next chapter has scrambling to get ready and the beginning of the 'Blue Friday' event. Look forward to it and review!<strong>

**Kimiko: Oh here you are, Flanagan! Oh, my dear readers, were the number-tricks any good? :D That scene between Kaito and Shinichi just inside the door is the closest to fluffy bromance I'll write in this...maybe. Because this is mainly a Family fic, and any pairings are Gosho's originals. But these aren't the focus of the story.  
><strong>

****[Thank****s for telling me about my mistake]****

* * *

><p>Omake: <strong>A Loose End<strong>

Mr. Akai came back with his computer. "Kuroba, you'd better call the phone company and tell them to stop connecting calls from that phone."

"Right," Shinichi muttered. "That's a smart idea."

"Well, I'm not a teacher just for my hacking skills and gun collection." Mr. Akai replied with a knowing smile.


	10. Blue Friday

_Kimiko: If I get any facts wrong, it's because I'm just a fangirl writing this. I'm not a professional and I definitely don't have access to Gosho Aoyama's coolness, though I wish I did. Ooo…I could be close to Kaito and Shinichi and Heiji…_

**Blue Friday**

Even after Mr. Akai assured them that he would call them as soon as he cracked the encryption on the files, the students still waited in his apartment for a while, wondering what to do. They all wanted to find out as much as they could about the 'Blue Friday' event so they could prevent it. Especially Heiji.

Heiji's father was a policeman. A superintendent.

Shinichi wanted to do something to help Heiji feel better, but the group gathered in Mr. Akai's living room was feeling so much dread that the very air seemed to leak apprehension. After all, there was only so much that seven high school students and one slightly eccentric teacher could do to resist terrorists.

Heiji decided that the best thing to do for now was to let Eisuke, Genta, Ayumi and Mitsuhiko leave for home. As much as they wanted to stay, they did know there was nothing they could do until Mr. Akai finished the task of making the files they needed accessible to them. So they went out in pairs again, just to be safe. They still weren't sure if the guys in black were looking around the city.

Shinichi and Kaito were going to stay at Mr. Akai's place for the day. Shinichi left a message for their mother using Kaito's phone to let her know. Right now, however, the three boys were lounging on the sofa and armchairs in Mr. Akai's living room. They hadn't said anything since Shinichi finished the call, and were silently brooding on their own thoughts. The room was just as melancholy as before, but now it was emptier.

Kaito couldn't stand the atmosphere. He had already felt enough seriousness packed into one morning to last a month. He quietly stood up and walked around. He looked for something to relieve the tension. He needed something he could manipulate. Wandering into another room, he spotted a shelf filled with books and other mementos. Kaito scanned up and down this, looking for something in particular.

There it was—a deck of playing cards. Kaito picked it up and headed back to the living room. The others looked up in slow recognition as he sat down close to Mr. Akai's coffee table and began shuffling.

"Hey, Shinichi, pick a card, any card," he said.

* * *

><p>"Hey, I saw that!" Shinichi exclaimed. Kaito looked up innocently.<p>

"Oh~, what is it you saw?"

"Don't play that," Shinichi grabbed at Kaito's wrist. "You—" he broke off when half the deck flew out of Kaito's sleeve, landing on the coffee table and covering the rest of the cards. For what seemed like the twentieth time since they started, Heiji burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"Oh, God, you two are so funny!" He dropped his own cards and grabbed his sides as he fell backwards onto the floor. "You guys should be in a comedy act together! It's too funny!" Shinichi spun around to face Heiji.

He shut his mouth tightly, crossed his arms, and scowled in an attempt to hide his embarrassment and mortification at being called funny. He demanded, "Maybe Kaito's amusing to you, but I don't see how I am. He's just a trickster who likes to mess with people to get a reaction. He—"

"Oh, stop! Stop, please!" Tears were coming out of Heiji's eyes. He was gasping for breath in between his spasms of laughter. "L-look behind you, Kuroba,"

Shinichi was just barely able to catch sight of his brother behind him, having combed down his hair in an imitation of his own and silently imitating every action Shinichi made. Shinichi scowled again. Kaito grinned goofily, and then became Shinichi's mirror image again. Shinichi yelled in frustration. He grabbed a sofa cushion and tried to swing it at Kaito, but he ducked under it and danced away. Shinichi threw it across the room in an attempt to hit him, but Kaito expertly dodged it again and it hit Heiji, who by now was so lost in the moment to care. Kaito continued hopping around the room, while Shinichi tried to attack him with various [thankfully non-breakable] objects and Heiji laughed at the antics.

Mr. Akai was now standing in the doorway. He had finished the decoding, but if he mentioned it to them now, it would ruin all of Kaito Kuroba's efforts. This was good for all three of the boys.

He managed to raise his voice so they could hear him. "It's probably going to take a while, so you guys just go home and I'll bring the results to school on Monday." Kaito was now wrestling with Shinichi and Heiji had recovered well enough to listen. "Just come a little early so I can tell you everything. And be sure to include those others." Heiji nodded, still wiping tears out of his eyes.

It took at least twenty more minutes to recover long enough to leave the apartment, though.

* * *

><p><em>The next day…<em>

Once everyone had arrived in the classroom, Mr. Akai started to speak. "I'll just run through the basics for now. The terrorists are called Organized Cry. They're going to bomb the main police headquarters and try to sneak into the secondary headquarters while the city tries to respond to the attacks. The whole thing should start at 12:00 noon. According to the information we have, one team is going to plant a car bomb in front, a second team will rush in with firearms after them and a third is the main bombing team. Their plan is to force a way through the back entrance while the police's attention is occupied. They'll set their bombs in the elevators and plan to set them off at exactly 1:10 in the afternoon. It's supposed to mock the emergency number, like September 11 in America. After the bombing, at 1:15, apparently, the fourth and fifth teams are going to begin their move against the second building. One team will take control from the bottom floor up and the other will come in a helicopter to pick them up once that team has the information they want."

"Did they mention what they're trying to find in the second police headquarters?" Shinichi asked.

"Well," Mr. Akai said, rubbing his temples, "Apparently, the more information they can get the better. They don't seem to care: records, names, places, schedules. I think they mostly want to strike a blow on the city, by handicapping its police. They didn't exactly list their mission statement." He pulled the flash drive out of his pocket and handed it back to Shinichi. "I think this mostly had their plans. It doesn't include many names, but it's pretty detailed on times and actions. Here, I already made a few backup copies."

Shinichi took the drive and looked over at Heiji. "We should probably give it to the police to warn them."

"Wait, there's one thing that I've been wondering," Ayumi interrupted. "Wouldn't those people, the Organized Cry, have decided to change their plans? I mean, they know Shinichi has their information."

Mr. Akai shook his head. "The encryption on that would have taken the police at least a week to break, even if they called in someone else. Besides, these types of people get guys to watch the police stations for precisely that possibility. If it seems like the police are in on it, they call off the entire thing."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Mitsuhiko asked. "If they call it off, no one has to get hurt."

"But the terrorists would still be out there." Genta pointed out. "We have to let only a few people that we trust know ahead of time, so it isn't heard by the wrong people and discovered. This is a chance for the police to take these people down without too much damage."

"And Organized Cry isn't going to change their plans, even if they were suspicious of me." Shinichi added. "They're too confident in their abilities. At Tropical Land, they didn't even bother to check the drive until after I left. They don't see us as an issue. Besides, as long as I stay under the radar, they won't suspect me of telling anyone. Remember, they're still waiting for us to respond back to their demands. And we've alerted the phone company, so they have no way of contacting us now."

"But, Kuroba," Heiji argued. "There are still at least two problems. What if they see you coming to school?"

"I can answer that!" Kaito cried out, hugging his brother's neck from behind. "Mom's driving us to and from school this week. And just in case, I brought this!" He slid a pair of glasses with large lenses onto his brother's face. Shinichi flinched as it was put on, then blinked. "And I have one for me too!" Kaito concluded, showing them his own pair of slightly similar glasses.

The group looked at them. They still looked like twins, but they looked just different enough from the glasses-less Kuroba twins to keep people from drawing connections.

"We can also change our hairstyles if you think we should," Shinichi said.

Mr. Akai smiled. "You probably don't need to. Just be careful this week." A thought occurred to him. "Oh, right, the makeup day for the museum trip is Friday." The students were hit with a wave of different emotions. It could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how closely the teachers were watching. They also wanted to help bring the terrorists to justice, not be stuck at a museum. "Don't worry," Mr. Akai reassured. "I can help you slip out of the museum in time to help stop Blue Friday from happening. But right now, Mr. Hattori, you need to get that drive to your dad. Make sure he knows what's at stake here and tell him to be careful of whoever he tells."

Heiji nodded. "I will."

The morning bell rang. Eisuke jumped and a few of the students were somewhat surprised. They had been so focused that they almost forgot about school.

"Oh, remember to keep taking your studies seriously," Mr. Akai added with a predatory half-smile. "I can't just let you slack off while you're preoccupied with criminals. And Mr. Hattori, if you teenagers are going to be at the headquarters on Friday, I'd like to be there also. I'll help you with this all the way."

* * *

><p><em>Friday, the day of the event, 'Blue Friday'<em>

Both Heiji and Mr. Akai were as good as their words. Heizou Hattori spread the word to only the people who absolutely had to know and agreed to allow them to help as long as they were not near the places where gunfire would most likely take place. And Mr. Akai, with a reluctant Ms. Haibara's help, managed to get them away from the museum.

As they were driving towards the secondary headquarters building in Mr. Akai's Chevy, Heiji and Shinichi discussed strategy.

"We're going to be in two teams, one at each building." Heiji explained. "I've already considered the groups and based off our strengths, I came up with how we can split up. The secondary HQ team will be Tsuburaya, Hondou and Kuroba, uh, both of you. Me, Mr. Akai, Kojima and Yoshida will be at the main HQ. That's okay with everyone, right?" No one argued.

Shinichi followed. "The main HQ team has to help the police in any way they can. And if they have it under control, they have to listen to whatever the police say. But remember, we can't draw out the other teams unless a bomb goes off somewhere. But, if the situation's bad, the bomb squad will probably have to make the sacrifice of losing the chance to catch half the terrorists so they can save the people at the main HQ. Remember, these bombs won't just destroy the police building. They'll affect the whole vicinity."

"Okay," Mr. Akai said. "And what is the other team doing?"

"We'll be helping the police spring the trap on the fourth team of terrorists and luring the fifth team into landing with their helicopter. The headquarters has to be almost empty so the terrorists enter in the first place. The police will keep their best men there, so it'll be relatively simple to stop the fourth team. The problem is getting the fifth team to think it's okay to land. I still haven't figured out that part."

The car was silent for about half a minute. The headquarters loomed closer and closer in the windshield.

When Kaito, Shinichi, Mitsuhiko and Eisuke finally got out, they all felt the same. The last reading on the clock said 11:37. There was no time for hesitation anymore. Blue Friday was about to start.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: I know this ends on a cliffhanger, so I'm putting two chapters on at the same time! Actually I wanted three, but I don't think I'll have it done in time.<strong>

**Flanagan: That's okay. And I'm sure the readers understand that you spent extra time** **working on more chapters to make them happy.**


	11. Power of Reason

_Kimiko: Mwa-ha-ha! I feel like I accomplished so much! But maybe that's because I got so into this as I wrote it. I didn't get Flanagan to look too closely at this one, so there might be some mistakes. And I'll try to get out the last one by tonight [in my time zone, anyway]!  
><em>

**Power of Reason**

Shinichi, Kaito, Mitsuhiko and Eisuke were in an empty room of the headquarters. Shinichi was pacing, Kaito was pretending to sleep, Mitsuhiko was tapping on the windowsill while looking outside and Eisuke was staring at the wall while muttering incomprehensible things to himself.

Their side of the operation wasn't supposed to start until about 1:10, when they would have to be ready for the fourth team of terrorists. But the headquarters should be 'alerted' at 12:00 of the car bomb outside the main headquarters and the attacks afterwards. Some of the police would start heading over there at noon, but they still had time until then.

Shinichi looked up at the clock again. 11:44. Time seemed to go by much too slowly now.

All of the nervous ticks of each person were starting to drive Kaito crazy. He felt like doing something to relieve the stress, but he had his mind full of other matters. And whatever he did now would not help the mood.

Kaito was about to tell him that he would wear a hole in the floor when they heard a distant explosion. Everyone in the room jumped and looked at the clock. 11:48.

"It's too early," Eisuke whispered. "It wasn't supposed to start until noon."

"One explanation," Shinichi replied. "They felt uneasy because they didn't get their information from us and they've changed the times of their operation. We just have to hope they didn't change anything else."

A policeman burst into the room. "The Superintendent wants to speak with you guys, now!"

* * *

><p>Shuuichi Akai, self-proclaimed Independent Studies teacher, computer enthusiast, and firearms collector, knew that the timing was off. But, as he knelt at a window with a sniper rifle he had convinced Heizou Hattori to let him bring into the building, he knew that the starting time didn't matter once it started. They just had to deal with the situation as best they could.<p>

He aimed at another terrorist through the smoke below and shot expertly. The man fell, but he was not killed. A calm voice came from beside him.

"So, you say you've never been in any police before?" Miwako Sato said casually as she aimed at a car that some terrorists were hiding behind. "What about a government agency?"

"Oh, I wasn't involved with any government before," he answered. If he shot at the ground right there, it would make the people behind the car move out. He tried it and, just as predicted, the terrorists shifted their positions. The policewoman took advantage of this and incapacitated two before they hid again. "But I did indeed do some interesting things before I became a teacher. I personally think it's much more fun to mold the minds of tomorrow's leaders than anything I've done before." He found a new target and smiled through his scope. "Besides, I get to meet and befriend such amazing young people."

"Like the Kurobas and Superintendent Hattori's son?"

"Them and the others: Kojima has a lot of unlocked potential; Tsuburaya is rather one-track focused, but he's determined; Hondou has some amazing talents hidden; and Yoshida has a good heart but she's also rather hardy beneath it all. Rather like a certain female policewoman I met while shooting out a third-story window."

* * *

><p>Shinichi had lost track of what was going on a while ago. The last thing they were sure of was that the main headquarters was under a lot of pressure from the terrorists and the second bomb hadn't shown up yet.<p>

The secondary headquarters they were at was also being fired upon, by a surprisingly large terrorist team. They were focusing on the front, though they would throw explosives at the windows every now and then. From the sounds he could hear, they had already gotten into a portion of the ground floor.

They hoped the second bomb wasn't coming to this location. The bomb squad was at the main headquarters, expecting the bomb to show up there.

Though, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. They hadn't been split up by the chaos.

Kaito was the one with the radio. He held it against his ear, interpreting the messages that came across it. There hadn't been a good report for a while.

Then he said, "Someone on the ground floor has just noticed a terrorist bringing something in. He says it might be explosives." Kaito looked at Shinichi, exchanging worried glances. Mitsuhiko and Eisuke were fearful as well. The clock read 12:53. Once again, Eisuke voiced their fears.

"I don't know if the bomb disposal people will make it in time."

* * *

><p>"No, even when the other departments get there, they'll probably have set it off before." Heizou said over the communicator, the only solid link with the second headquarters. "You're going to have to deal with it yourselves. Either get it away from the terrorists and out of the city, or disable it. I'm sorry, but we're tied down. I'm trying to make some sense of this myself."<p>

"Dad," Heiji said earnestly. "Logically speaking, if the bomb is set to go off there, the helicopters, if they do come, will probably be here. It's too risky dropping to the ground, so the terrorists are maybe planning on getting into a nearby building if they can't take this one."

"Yes, but we can't let them into either option." Heizou Hattori contemplated the dilemma.

Shinichi's voice came over the device. "Listen, you have to give them at least some leeway. Let them think that you're tiring out. Wait until you hear the helicopters to spring the trap."

Heizou considered this third option. "Well, it's a risky bet, but I suppose it's the best one we have. That'll take care of our end, but what about you?"

"Don't worry too much about us. We still haven't shown them what they're dealing with yet."

* * *

><p>Shinichi handed the communicator back to the policeman and faced the bomb before him.<p>

"Was it alright to say that?" Mitsuhiko asked. "We still don't have a way to disarm this and there are still terrorists below.

"Have a little more faith in him," Kaito said, backing up his brother. "We can get control of this situation."

"You can disarm a bomb?" Mitsuhiko said skeptically.

"Well," Shinichi told him. "If Kaito can build a hang-glider, than I should be able to stop a bomb from going off."

Kaito looked at him in surprise. "How did you know?"

Shinichi smiled. "You don't make it easy, but I can guess what you're doing when you leave no trace of leaving but an open window. Plus, I saw you once. Getting back to this, I'm sure I can disarm it."

Kaito regained his composure. "I'm sure you can. Now what can we do?"

The policeman answered for Shinichi. "I need you two," he said, pointing at Eisuke and Mitsuhiko, "to bar this door and help keep any terrorists after their missing bomb out. And the twin can help his brother with whatever he needs. I know that the job you're about to do can take more than one set of hands."

The boys nodded and got to work.

"Now," Shinichi said, beginning to unscrew the cover from the ticking bomb, "Let's show them the power of reason. I'll show them that when you logically work out a situation, you will overcome people who rely on chaos."

Kaito held his brother's hand steady as he reached into the complex-looking device. "All we have to do is trust that the other does his part. This will work."

_It had better, _the policeman thought. The timer showed that they were running out of time.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Apparently there are different superintendents for the different sections. That's why I mentioned two superintendents. They're the ones in charge of handling this, though the one at the second HQ is letting Shinichi handle the technical stuff while he directs the fighting. And if this chapter feels rushed, I'll make up for it with coolness in the next chapter, which will be titled, "Conan Edogawa, Detective"<br>**


	12. Conan Edogawa, Detective

_Kimiko: Once again, I rushed a little with this, but it still took me a couple of hours. I like it a lot, though! And I've been wondering about Akai too…_

**Conan Edogawa, Detective**

Shinichi felt numb as he cut through the last of the wires. He had resolved before he started to not look at the screen that mocked how little time he had left. He was sure that Kaito, Mitsuhiko, Eisuke and the other policeman, a guy called Momose, all were by the apprehension he could sense, even through his ability to forget his surroundings to focus on his work.

He checked over the device, which was now mostly taken apart. Satisfied that he had left nothing unfinished, he allowed himself to look at the now-stagnant number on the display. 0:50. So he had finished with fifty seconds to spare. That was good, considering this was his first time ever defusing a live bomb. He had, in a brief moment of spare time at a library, found an old book detailing how explosives were put together. Now that he recalled it, he supposed it shouldn't have been within reach of high school students.

"It's done?" Momose asked fearfully. Right, Shinichi hadn't said anything yet.

"Yeah, it's not going to explode. I didn't find anything that could have allowed it to be activated remotely either."

Eisuke and Mitsuhiko breathed a collective sigh of relief. Momose leaned against the door with his eyes closed. Kaito grinned and hugged his brother tightly.

"I knew you could do it. If anyone could, it'd be you." Shinichi decided it was okay for him to smile too.

The sounds of the shooting were audible less frequently than before. Momose remembered his radio and pressed a switch on it.

"Sir, this is Momose. The bomb's done! That kid, Shinichi Kuroba did it!" Faintly the people in the barred room could hear the Superintendent's voice.

"We've about wrapped this side up too. That plan of his worked better than we expected. None of these rats managed to fly away on the helicopters. We've gotten them all rounded up and we're disarming them now. I guess they've decided it's pointless to resist at this point."

Another voice came in, the Superintendent in charge of overseeing the battle in the second headquarters. "We've gotten them holed up in a room on this side. It'll be a few more minutes before we can rush in and finish this. It's safe to say we've won. Not too many casualties, either. What about you, Hattori?"

"It could have been much worse. The car bomb took its toll, but without the warning, it would have been slaughter."

Suddenly Heiji's voice was heard. "Hey, Kuroba, you're both okay, right? And Tsuburaya and Hondou too? We're all fine over here."

Kaito answered for them. "We're all great! Maybe still recovering from seeing Shin-chan playing with his unwanted present from Organized Cry, but I bet we're better than you. You know why?"

"Don't play games over this radio. It's still being used for important things." Shinichi interjected.

Ignoring him, Kaito continued. "It's cause I'm here! My good luck and extraordinary charm combined to make me a good luck charm!"

Over the radio, laughter from all the policemen who were listening could be heard.

* * *

><p>One thing that Kaito and the Detective Club had insisted on was seeing the terrorists be taken away to a secure facility. They were loaded into several different vehicles, as they were many of them. Some of them had to be taken to a criminal hospital, first.<p>

Mr. Akai stood next to his students as while they were awed by the number of people who had wanted to hurt the police so badly. It shocked even Shinichi and Heiji for a while that there was such a group that was just so full of hate for good people that they wouldn't mind even hurting innocent people.

The terrorists had gotten some wind of the fact that a few high school students had greatly contributed to their demise. They didn't seem too thrilled about it.

"Who do those kids think they are, anyway?" the last of the terrorists growled as he was led into a van. The door was shut firmly without any further discussion. Shinichi, Kaito, Heiji, Ayumi, Genta, Mitsuhiko, Eisuke and Mr. Akai all watched it drive away with a great sense of lingering satisfaction.

Each member of the Detective Club was thinking as one in response to this query: _'Conan Edogawa, detective.'_

* * *

><p><em>Two days later…<em>

Kaito remembered a lot of things that his father told him: tricks, hints, advice, lots of things like that. But one thing that Kaito always liked to keep in mind was this. "After any buildup of tension for anything, you have to let the audience relax with a big, flashy conclusion. It can be anything, really, but fun and flashy are the keys."

Fun and flashy. Therefore, Kaito had invited friends from school to come to the Kuroba house for a needed to lighten the mood the Detective Club had been in for the past week. Heck, the mood had almost saturated the Kuroba residence with gloom-and-doom Shinichi! Kaito had managed to keep him busy thinking about studies because it was better than worrying about terrorists.

His mother helped to plan Kaito's epic party and promised to disappear as soon as he was ready to start it. Shinichi had some idea of it, but he was willing to accept it. It had been a long time since he really relaxed and he even began looking forward to it, along with the rest of the club.

But the party would also serve one more purpose that only Kaito was aware of. He still had to have his revenge on the Detectice Club for poisoning Shinichi's mind with serious detective troubles.

He had it all planned out perfectly. The party was already starting and he told the club to arrive together, along with Shinichi, who he had sent out to get another snack. The rest of the guests were already there, but the club didn't know.

They all walked through the door together and stopped once inside. The hall had been redesigned as a hall of mirrors. The architecture was completely changed and colored lights were flashing in the absence of the normal white lights. The door was now locked behind them, so they had no choice but to stumble through the maze. Even the floor and ceiling were covered by mirrors. "In The Hall of the Mountain King" was playing loudly. Shinichi was trying to yell at Kaito over the music, but he wasn't about to listen, watching from a camera he had positioned earlier.

Suddenly a light film of glue sprayed out of hidden nozzles in the walls. There was a soft boom and a huge cloud of glitter temporarily hid them from view. Now the glue again and balloons burst through the fake mirrors, sticking to them.

The Detective Club could now see. They had managed to get into the room where the party was, but they were covered with glitter and balloons.

And the people at the party were waiting with darts to throw at the balloons.

Kaito could hardly control his laughter as he watched his show unfold.

* * *

><p>Of course, he had to allow them to clean up and change. By the time they were done, the party was now well and truly a party. Friends were talking, eating dancing to the music, and just plain hanging out, still laughing at Kaito's sweet revenge. Kaito eventually got over to where Aoko and Ran were asking Shinichi about the terrorists and the bomb. Kaito took over his twin's dull retelling with his own high-adventure version of the tale. Shinichi allowed it, occasionally scoffing at the over-dramatized parts.<p>

Ran looked astonished at Shinichi when Kaito was done. "You did all that?" she breathed, still awed. He shrugged and nodded. "Wow, I'm," she paused, her eyes misty and her voice quavering, "I'm so glad you're okay. You could have been hurt so badly, but—" she broke off again. "You're so cool, Shinichi."

And with that, she leaned forward and kissed Shinichi on the lips. Aoko and Kaito were both surprised. So was Shinichi at first, but Ran didn't move away, so he pulled her closer and kissed back.

The moment ended, but not after most of the people in the room had seen and were either clapping or shouting words of encouragement. Aoko felt a little jealous, but she too was cheering on her friend.

Both Ran and Shinichi were red in the face. Kaito grinned. Oh, he wouldn't let his brother live this down. Speaking of living down…

"I want to show everyone something!" Kaito shouted over the noise. He pressed a remote control and a projector showed the picture of Shinichi and Heiji he had taken in the library a while ago. Now, thanks to Kaito's handiwork, they had faces that had been exaggerated to make serious seems funny. They were surrounded by piles of thick, Photo-shopped books. Shinichi was chained to the desk and Heiji had a dunce hat on that said 'Workaholic.' There was a demon in the background with a word bubble that said 'Faster!'

Shinichi was about to sink into the ground from embarrassment. And Heiji, who was actually enjoying it all, wasn't helping.

* * *

><p>However, there were two people who didn't get to see these events. Ayumi Yoshida, after spending half an hour in the room, had decided it was too warm and asked Genta Kojima to come outside with her.<p>

Now under the moon, they could still hear the noise from inside, but the two felt like they were in a detached calmness. They had spent most of the time exchanging idle conversation about their feelings over the past week.

"Genta-kun," Ayumi whispered. "You're still going to be in the Detective Club after all this, right?"

Genta was surprised by such a question. "Of course, Yoshida-chan! I want to protect people from bad things and bad people. Even if I'm not as smart as Kuroba, I want to do what I can."

"That's good." Ayumi said softly. "I want to also, but I was scared these past few days. I want to be sure I can have someone I can always rely on. I mean, someone I can talk to about anything that scares me."

"You don't have to be scared." The words left Genta's mouth before he had time to think them over. "I'll always be here to protect you." He felt like kicking himself. Ayumi looked up at him with her big, beautiful eyes. Genta closed his eyes, waiting for her to laugh and leave.

Before Genta realized it, Ayumi had given him a short, chaste kiss. He didn't pay attention to where it was, because he felt like his dreams had finally been realized.

He wondered if Ayumi would run off now, without giving him a chance to slowly react. But she stayed there, blushing a little but still looking up at him.

"Um, Yoshida, no, Ayumi," he stumbled over his words and tried to get control over himself again. "I—"

"I like you, Genta."

"I—I like you too. Uh... W-will you be my girlfriend?"

"Y-yes, I would. I really would, Genta."

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: So which love scene did you like better? I personally like the Genta and Ayumi scene, but I also spent more time on that. I really think Genta is given little credit just because he's not as smart as the others. He's got a good heart and that is what the girls love. Besides, Mitsuhiko has his crush on Ms. Haibara, though she may or may not have a thing for Dr. Agasa. Please review!<strong>

**Oh, I hope you've realized that these chapters focus a bit more on Shinichi, the reason side. But the title says reason AND magic, so that means that Kaito has his own side of this. One part down, one to go…So here's an omake, kind of just for fun. It's not linked to the other half.**

* * *

><p>Omake<strong>: Holmes and Houdini<strong>

"Wow, so Organized Cry was really taken down," a woman's voice echoed in the dark, hazy room. It smelled of smoke and drinks. "Who was it again that they ran into? Those very lucky people who brought their destruction like the plague on Egypt?"

"These people, ma'am," A man set a handful of pictures before her. He pointed to two in particular. "Especially these two,"

"Ah, twins, aren't they?" She purred, crossing her legs again. "I like them. A Cool Guy and a Trickster. Like a young Holmes and Houdini."

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: There might be a short break as I get my notes ready for the second half!<strong>


	13. Parallel Story: Teacher's Lounge

_Kimiko: I mentioned the teacher's lounge before, didn't I? This is a story that doesn't have too much to do with the plot. I just wanted to write about the crazy teachers. _

**Parallel Story: Teacher's Lounge**

In trying to find the best teachers possible for Beika High School, Eri Kisaki had unintentionally brought together one of the most interesting groups of adults in Japan. Some of the teachers were normal enough, but there were others, especially the ones teaching the juniors, who were just plain…odd. They may have seemed perfectly normal in a different situation, but in a high school setting, it was hard to follow Ms. Kisaki's reasoning for gathering them under one roof to guide young students into the world of tomorrow.

Even Eri Kisaki had moments when she would wonder at her own intentions. Was it okay so have such a group of clashing individuals teaching students? She would usually dismiss such thoughts by reminding herself that the students were getting the best education possible. As long as they got the best education, the methods of these best teachers didn't matter, right?

She would often unload her worries on Mr. Black, the guidance counselor, even though he was supposed to be a counselor for students. He apparently understood her worries, though. He would agree with her and say that her teachers were giving the students the best education they could get. That was the job of an instructor and finding these people was the job of a principal. Therefore, she had done her job. Now all she had to do was keep the school running smoothly, keep the students active in school, and oversee festivals and graduation, he would politely explain. Oh, and whatever she did, she shouldn't go into the teacher's lounges.

* * *

><p><em>Why not, you ask?<em>

Most of the teachers really were normal. It was the junior-class instructors who were slightly more interesting than your average teacher. One day, all of them, including a few from the other grades, were resting in the teacher's lounge during the lunch break.

Once again, Andre Camel, the gym teacher, was engaging in brisk English conversation with Ms. Starling, the 11th grade English teacher. Most of the others in the room could have followed if they wanted, but the two usually were talking about nonsense that made references to American television shows or idioms.

Independent Studies teacher Shuichi Akai and Algebra-Trigonometry teacher Subaru Okiya were sitting across from each other as usual. They often spoke with each other in cryptic statements that could have been taken as threats or challenges, but when they spoke of each other, it was always in respect. At least, that's what Sumiko Kobayashi, the one normal teacher in the 11th grade department, thought. She taught Japanese and was thought to be a pushover by the new students, but she actually had a fiery personality that was awakened by the encouragement of fiancé, an outstanding man in the Tokyo police department.

Today, however, Mr. Okiya was speaking with Dr. Hiroshi Agasa the Physics teacher, Ms. Ai Haibara the Chemistry teacher and her sister Ms. Akemi Miyano the freshman Art teacher. They were discussing something that would sound complicated to anyone who hadn't listened from the beginning: the sciences behind cooking fried rice.

Mr. Akai was speaking with Ms. Chris Vineyard the History teacher. Ms. Kobayashi felt like this was a deadly combination. She would often catch them glaring at each other in the hallways and wished Ms. Kisaki had found a better way to schedule them. But it always seemed like Ms. Vineyard had the class directly following Mr. Akai's, which meant they would always have chances to clash as classes changed.

Ms. Starling would notice this too. She personally thought that both Ms. Vineyard and Mr. Akai were secretly evil, but it felt like a childish assumption. But still, as sparks flew between the two now, she had to admit it was frightening, like watching two beasts that were waiting for the other to make to first move.

Suddenly Mrs. Yukiko Kudo burst in, half-dragging her husband, Mr. Yusaku Kudo. This woman always managed to make herself the center of attention. The conversations halted.

"Hey, everyone, I hope you didn't miss us!"

"Nice to see you out of the library, Yusaku," Ms. Vineyard said, moving away from Shuichi Akai. "And it's always nice to see you here, Yukiko."

Mrs. Kudo proceeded to greet everyone there with a bright smile. Then, like the impulsive woman she was, she exclaimed, "Oh, Chris, have you eaten yet?" Not waiting for an answer, she left her husband and grabbed her friend's arm. "There's something that smells amazing in the cafeteria! Come on!" They left as quickly as Yukiko had come.

"Well, that was sudden," Ms. Haibara muttered.

"Um, Ai," Akemi Miyano said gently. "I'm kind of curious as to what it is in the cafeteria. Will you come with me?" She was the only thing that could move her iceberg-of-a-sister. Ai Haibara's face softened and she silently followed her shy sister out the door.

'_So cute,'_ Ms. Starling and Ms. Kobayashi thought simultaneously. They caught each other's eyes and nodded. Ms. Starling moved over to where Ms. Kobayashi was and they began to talk in hushed voices about how sweet Ai acted around her sister.

The rest of the teachers lapsed into a conversation based on questions they had for each other, about students, teaching methods, interesting rumors, etc.

One particular topic eventually turned up. "Oh, Akai, I heard a rumor that you were around the police headquarters a few weeks ago. You know, during the terrorist attack?" Mr. Okiya brought up.

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, I don't know why, but the rumor went that you were helping the police shoot at the terrorists. Weird, isn't it? I somehow just can't see you with a gun." There was a brief staring match between Okiya and Akai, each waiting for the other's next move.

"I could," Mr. Kudo said dangerously. Mr. Akai's eyes slid over to him, then came back to stare at his soda can. Yusaku pressed further. "_Do_ you know how to operate a firearm, Akai?" All the teachers waited with bated breath. Mr. Akai was an enigma that no one, not even the principal, could quite figure out. This was their chance to learn something about the mysterious Independent Studies teacher.

"Well, actually I can." Mr. Akai said casually. "My family owned a dojo for generations, but my father wanted to learn about guns too. He collected a rather large amount of them and learned how to be an expert in all of them. Of course, I was interested in them too. So he taught me all about them. When my grandfather died, he inherited the dojo, but he was tired of it, so he gave everything to me. I got another teacher to take care of it and went off to college to do whatever I wanted." He paused. "Would that answer satisfy you, or would you rather hear something more exotic? I'm quite creative in that regard."

Half the teachers in the room groaned. Still an enigma.

Mr. Black had been about to enter the room when he heard this conversation. He walked away, shaking his head.

Yes.

Ms. Kisaki definitely should stay away from the teacher's lounge if she wanted to maintain her faith in the teachers' compatibility for a school setting.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: I'm about ready to start of the <span>Power of Magic<span> half of this. This parallel story was just a way to clear my head. And I'm sure Mr. Shuichi Akai can always come up with more exotic reasons for his marksmanship abilities. Oh, but that still doesn't explain the hacking—but then again, Okiya didn't ask! If you have any more questions about the teachers, I'll think up ways to answer them. Also, I'm considering writing more of these Teacher's Lounge things and putting them under a separate title. If you liked this, tell me if you'd like more!**


	14. The Legacy of Touichi Kuroba

****_Kimiko: Yay! The second half is starting! I'm so excited to write this and I hope you're excited to find out what happens. And as a disclaimer, just cause I feel paranoid suddenly, I don't own Detective Conan, Magic Kaito, or anything like that. Darn it!  
><em>

**The Legacy of Touichi Kuroba**

Months had passed since the terrorist attempt on the Tokyo Police Headquarters. It had mostly faded from conversation, but it had been such a shocking event that it was still mentioned every now and then.

But that's just the effect shocking things had on people. Days, weeks, months, up to a year afterwards, the impact still was a thorn in people's memories. Then it would start to fade, gradually at first, then faster. People were reminded that their lives were busy, that they had other worries that consumed their minds and life went on. Every so often people would be reminded of the event, but it would generally be a hazy memory, and would go away soon.

It was the same when Touichi Kuroba died of an accident onstage. His audience, fans, and friends were devastated. The Kuroba family was hit hardest. Touichi's funeral was private, but fans created websites to personally mourn the person who had been considered to be one of the greatest magicians in the world. But now these feelings had faded. The sites had been forgotten, replaced or taken down by their administrators.

Still, though, the feelings did not vanish. The memory was still there, just buried by the years.

There was still a gap in the Kuroba family, one that time could never truly heal.

* * *

><p>Kaito and Shinichi dealt with problems together now. They trusted each other. They worked on schoolwork together, now seeming to think on the same track. Best of all, in Kaito's mind, they could pose as identical twins whenever they felt like it and they could fool all but the closest of observers.<p>

Realizing that they could not accomplish everything by relying only on themselves, they relied on each other. That was how people were meant to live. That was how the twins had learned to live.

* * *

><p><em>A day like any other, if that's possible when Kaito Kuroba has anything to do about it…<em>

"Shin-chan~!"

"I told you to stop calling me by that name."

"Don't wanna!"

Sigh. "What is it you want?"

"Oh, a lot of things! I'm so glad you asked! I want a cake and a pony and a model rocket and a—"

"I'll have you know that I'm not listening anymore."

The brothers stopped when they got to the edge of their property. There was an old man holding a pale yellow folder and standing awkwardly at the front door, as if afraid to ring the doorbell.

"Hey, mister, can we help you?" Shinichi asked, loudly enough to be heard. The man jumped, startled at the sudden voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, turning to face them. "I didn't mean to block the door. I was just about to talk with the residents of this house."

"We are the residents of the house," Kaito answered. Now that the man was visible, they could see what he really looked like. He was not necessarily large or small. He had round glasses and a balding head, but still had hair at the sides and an average moustache. "Was there something you needed?"

"Oh, well, it's hard to say out here,"

"Then come on in," Shinichi offered. "I think our mother's home too."

* * *

><p>The man introduced himself as Konosuke Jii. He waited patiently for Shinichi to bring in tea for everyone before saying anything.<p>

"I'm not sure if he ever said anything, but I used to be the late Master Kuroba's assistant." Jii began, looking at each of them for a reaction. Chikage looked aside with a frown, as if trying to remember something.

"Well, I don't remember him mentioning you, but I do remember seeing you a few times. Kaito and Shinichi probably don't remember, though."

"Oh, well, I suppose that doesn't matter too much right now," Jii said. "What matters now is this." He opened the folder that he had brought and revealed its single content. It was an envelope. Jii looked from Kaito to Shinichi to Chikage, wondering who he should give it to. "It's a letter the Master wrote before he died. I've only just found it recently. It was in a hidden compartment of a music box he once gave me. I suppose he didn't want me to find it for a while. But, it's addressed to his 'dear sons,' so I wanted to bring it here."

Both Kaito and Shinichi made a grab for the letter, but Shinichi, after seeing Kaito's motion, pulled back his hand. On the outside of the sealed letter were indeed the words, _'To my dear sons.' _Shinichi looked over Kaito's shoulder as he carefully opened the small envelope and pulled out the letter inside.

Kaito began to read out loud, _"Kaito and Shinichi. If you are reading this, it either means that I haven't gotten my hands on that box I gave Jii, or I am no longer here. If it is the latter, then I have probably been killed by an evil organization. They asked me a while ago to look for a diamond. I realized that it had special properties that would give them incredible power, so I tried to get out of it. I'm worried that something might happen, but I won't tell you until you're both seventeen, so you can stay safe. The diamond is called Pandora and it will glow red when held up to the moonlight. Please find it and destroy it for me. Don't worry, because I've left you some things around the house to help, if you can find them. Be careful, and I love you all. –Dad"_

The room was silent for a few moments.

"I thought the Master died in an accident," Jii whispered.

Shinichi had an explanation for this. "Well, there are many murders that are designed to look like accidents, or even worse, as suicides. Criminals often take tedious steps to do this, and organizations have even more power and resources. Logically, there are a lot of ways it could happen." He was trying to hide his shock by trying to think through the situation, but it still felt painful. The family had been hurt badly all those years ago. And now, it was being relived again, but in a darker light. Because now it was revealed that their dad wasn't killed by an accident, but by another person.

"Do you know anything else?" Kaito asked Jii. The old man thought about this for a few seconds.

"He never told me anything about this," Jii said, still pondering. He too seemed weighted down by this discovery. "Hmm, I think I saw him once in one of his white show suits with a top hat and white mask. He said he was going to be someone called 'Kaitou KID' for a private show. It might have been this group."

"Kaitou KID," Shinichi repeated, "'Phantom Thief.' It's likely he did it."

Chikage was completely overwhelmed by all of this. "I—I don't know what to say. If you three are about to do something about this, then I," she stopped and rubbed at her eyes. "I don't want to lose another member of my family to whatever this is. Kaito, Shinichi, I could tell you not to do anything or to tell the police, but I know better. You two are just like him. You'd find a way to do it anyway. Just, please let me help with whatever I can. I may not be able to do too much, but I love Touichi too. I want to help him finish this too."

Shinichi and Kaito moved over to hold their mother in an embrace. Jii stood up, deciding it was time for him to leave. "If I can be of any more help, my number is inside the folder. And I want to avenge the Master's murder, too. Well then, Madame, Young Masters, goodbye,"

He exited the house quietly, leaving the Kurobas in the living room with their world-shaking letter.

* * *

><p><em>Later that day…<em>

"Kaito,"

"Shinichi?"

"We're going to find this diamond, right? This Pandora?"

"Of course we are. And we're going to stop that organization that killed our dad too."

"We don't even know anything about it. This is different from the terrorists."

"Yeah it's different. It's probably dangerous and all that, but I'm still going to do this. I'm going to be the one who surpasses Touichi Kuroba. I should at least be able to do this." Even so, Kaito was nervous. They knew next to nothing about this organization. And all they knew about the diamond was that it was called Pandora. Their dad had said he left things for them, but they could be hidden anywhere. And even now, he knew that he needed Shinichi. Just like Shinichi had needed him a few months ago. "Are you going to help?"

Shinichi smiled and hugged his brother tightly. "What kind of family would I be if I didn't?"

* * *

><p><strong>Flanagan: Hmm, it's okay, I guess, to start the second story. <strong>

**Kimiko: That letter was hard to write, though. I don't know much about Touichi, except that he's one of those 'too cool to live' people who didn't even get a chance to live in the stories. And he did leave them stuff, but they have to be detectivey and look for it! And then Kaito gets to be all cool and magicy!**


	15. Snake

_Kimiko: Last time I checked I still don't own any of this…darn it…_

_And if anything in here is wrong, or it doesn't make you happy, then I guess you don't have to keep reading it...I'm not an expert or a professional or anything.  
><em>

**Snake**

Shinichi felt like this was the thirtieth time he had come across a site about Greek mythology. Even using the advanced, specialized searches, he couldn't find anything about a _diamond_ called Pandora. He had decided that it was more likely that the legend or the power in the diamond had been dubbed 'Pandora,' and not the actual diamond. It would make more sense anyway. The names of gems often changed over time and the gems themselves earned new nicknames with each new reputation with each new owner.

But then Pandora could be any diamond. That definitely made things much more complicated.

He desperately racked his brain again, trying to think of at least one more lead, anything to narrow the list down even more. Was there a time that the legend showed up? That would eliminate any diamonds cut afterwards. Was there a certain place where the diamond or legend may have originated? Just going off the name, Pandora, it suggested a place with strong Western cultural or European Renaissance influence, but now that could be anywhere. What about the power it had? Once again, all they had was the name and it evoked a feeling of the forbidden. Pandora was the woman who opened the forbidden 'box' containing all of the vices of the world, but also contained hope, which could withstand those vices. But it didn't explain anything about the power. Who was after such an unknown power? It could be anyone, from anywhere. People loved power, no matter what it was.

Besides, how much power could a diamond contain? It was just a mass of carbon that had been put under extreme heat and pressure to change the structure of its atoms, wasn't it? Or did it really have some kind of magical power that some group of people was desperate enough to kill for?

There were too many questions and not enough answers.

He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration and hoped Kaito was having more luck than he was.

* * *

><p>Kaito knew his dad's old workroom only contained books, photo albums and some props for his tricks. He and Shinichi had spent sleepless nights here after the accident, curled up on the chair they remembered their dad loved to sit on when he was thinking up new ideas. They had looked through his photo albums so many times he knew what was in each of them and none contained any clues. Kaito himself had taken some of the books out of the workroom, just to see where his dad found inspiration.<p>

So if the promised 'things' around the house weren't here…

Maybe his dad made a secret room somewhere that, just like the compartment in the box, would open now and show them everything he had left them. Optimistic, Kaito began pressing on all of the walls in each room of the house. He kept to the things that hadn't changed in the past years.

Nothing was in Chikage's room.

Nothing was in the bathrooms.

Nothing was in the workroom.

Nothing was in Shinichi's room.

Nothing was in the kitchen, living room or dining room.

Kaito had saved his own room for last, mostly because he didn't want to think that the clues to his father's death had been so close to him. He began to knock gently on the walls. Nothing. He went over them three times, just to be sure. Nothing.

That couldn't be right. There had to be something. In annoyance, Kaito shot a look at the large painting of his father he kept on the wall. Where was it? It couldn't be that well hidden, could it?

Kaito walked up to the picture, willing the smiling face to say something. "Come on, he promised he would help us. Where is it? We can't help him if he doesn't give us something. We need something on those people. I need to do this." He closed his eyes sadly, leaning against the canvas…

…which suddenly swung inwards. Kaito yelled out in surprise as he fell face-first down a narrow chute. He closed his eyes, bracing for the impact.

Kaito fell onto a soft mattress. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was in a garage of some sort, under the ground. It was filled with equipment, a car, shelves, models and, thankfully, a table with some papers on it.

Kaito took a moment to stare in wonder at all the things his father had left. He felt like he was closer to his father than he had been for years. Here, with all of these things which still felt like him, he was aware of Touichi Kuroba's lingering essence.

Finally, Kaito tore his eyes away from all the fantastic items around him, and wandered over to the table. It was small, with only a handful of papers, but it still could hold some kind of hint. The first one was a list of his tricks. With a feeling of heartbreak, Kaito remembered this was the order of the last magic show he started, and never got to finish. He set this paper down carefully. The next was a small note. _"No real names. So I'm Kaitou KID. The other person, the one I'll work with, is Snake. I'm not sure about these guys, though." _That was it. The next three papers had designs for equipment. Kaito looked over these blueprints, but they mentioned nothing about that man called Snake or the organization. There was only one note left. Kaito scanned it carefully. _"They told me today. Pandora is a diamond that grants immortality. Not good."_

Kaito felt sick. He set down everything but the two notes and looked for a way to get back up to the house.

* * *

><p>Even with the new information, Shinichi and Kaito couldn't piece together too much more. A diamond that made people immortal could be sought by any type of people, so they were still lost on discovering anything about the organization. And they still had no leads on which specific diamond the immortality power was resting within. People who owned gems didn't publicly mention that they had suddenly stopped aging. Besides, diamonds often changed ownership, so they may not have had time to realize what the diamond did. To top off all of their problems right now, Kaito and Shinichi Kuroba didn't really have access to very many diamonds.<p>

So they had no choice but to go to school and hope to find out something once they got home again.

Still, Kaito kept wondering why his dad had written those notes. Touichi Kuroba used to remember everything in his head. Was he trying to tell them more than they were getting? Kaito resolved to look over the papers he had found with Shinichi that afternoon.

During lunch, they went to the cafeteria for the sake of moving around. They felt restless.

"Pandora should be big, right? Something that was cut a while ago," Shinichi was so desperate to try to reason the mysteries out that he hardly touched his food. "Because people figured out about the power and probably fought over it. And now it's lost,"

"Maybe," Kaito said, eating his own food with gusto. Even if Shinichi felt listless, that didn't mean he should. "But we might just be trying to over-glorify it. Dad didn't mention how big it was. I think even the organization didn't know."

"Why not over-glorify it? Dad died for it."

"No, he died to keep other people from getting involved in his problem. Kind of like what you were about to do with the terrorists."

Shinichi shut up and scowled at his food. Then he sighed and got up, mumbling about getting a drink. Kaito continued eating, glad that he didn't have Aoko asking him about random things. Not that he wanted to avoid her, but he felt like being serious for once. It had been a while since he could attack such an intriguing issue with his brother. The last time they got to do something close to this was when Kaito was given an extra-hard trigonometry problem specially designed by Mr. Okiya for sleeping in class.

"Ah, it's the Magician," Kaito faintly remembered that voice. He looked up into the too-close, reddish eyes of a girl. He racked his memory, trying to place her.

That senior girl in the library. The one who said something weird that he didn't remember. This was her.

"Oh, what can I do for you, my lady?"

The girl laughed softly, but in an entirely-too-creepy way. Kaito hoped Shinichi would come back soon. "I know what it is you're looking for, Magician. It's coming nearer. In fact, you'll be able to see it for a fortnight in a fortnight."

"R-right," Kaito said. A fortnight was two weeks, right? Why was this person using such old-fashioned words? "Um, and who—"

"Be careful of how you go about obtaining it, or you'll lose everything." She said darkly. Kaito really was hoping Shinichi would come back soon. Without another word, the girl walked away.

Shinichi took that moment to arrive. "Oh, Shin-chan~," Kaito sang, leaning his head on the table like a little kid, "Some senior came up and scared me! I'm so glad you're here!"

"A senior? Who?"

"Her," Kaito said, pointing to the retreating girl. Shinichi got up to see past the people in the room.

"Oh, you mean Akako Koizumi? I guess she is a little creepy."

"How do you know her?"

"She stays after school to tutor other students. She's pretty smart, if not a little eccentric. I've heard her say weird things whenever she reads from this big book she sometimes brings to school." They watched until she left at the far end of the room. "Was she only here to talk to you?" Kaito shrugged.

"I didn't notice her until she was only a few inches away from me."

"What did she say?"

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Oh, I didn't get too much dialogue in this. I like dialogue, though. I'll try for more next time, which will be "Diamonds Are A Thief's Best Friend"<strong>

**NEXT CONAN'S HINT! Blueprints**

**Right…this isn't really a mystery or anything. There wasn't much point to putting that in there...  
><strong>


	16. Diamonds Are A Thief's Best Friend

_Kimiko: If you people are just waiting for me to post another chapter to look at this fic, then I won't do it, I won't do it, I won't do it…_

_Flanagan: That didn't work._

**Diamonds Are A Thief's Best Friend**

"You actually believe her?" Kaito asked incredulously. They were home again and Shinichi was turning on the computer in his room.

"Not really," Shinichi replied. "But it's worth trying out. We haven't made much progress otherwise. And who knows, she might be right. By saying the diamond is coming nearer, that must mean whoever has it might be visiting or bringing it to Japan, or even Tokyo. And what was it she said about a fortnight? Was it going to be near us for a fortnight?"

"Um, I think it was something like 'you'll see it in a fortnight.' I was thinking more about how weird it was for someone to use the word 'fortnight' instead of two weeks."

"Well, it doesn't matter too much." Shinichi thought for a moment as the computer finished loading its start-up programs. "If the diamond is coming to Tokyo, or just somewhere in Japan, and she would be sure of this fact, it needs to be coming in a way that can't be canceled. So instead of an individual bringing a diamond, which could change easily…"

"It could be an exhibition." Kaito finished. "A diamond exhibition, or just a rare gems exhibition. Or even a traveling collection for art or science museums. That would be easier to look for, right?"

"But there are usually tons of gems in those kinds of exhibitions," Shinichi countered. "And the security would tight, especially if they're all gems. We can't exactly ask permission to look at them all in the moonlight to see if they're a mysterious diamond that gives immortality. Speaking of which, we still don't know much about that Pandora legend."

"Look for exhibitions at museums for now," Kaito said. "We have two weeks to get ready, after all. Once you find out where it'll be, then you can research the legend all you want."

"What are you going to be doing while I do all the hard work?"

"Oh, I'll be working hard," Kaito said with a mischievous gleam in his indigo eyes. "I'll be working on a way to check the diamonds once we get into the exhibition. That's the _real_ hard part, Shinichi."

* * *

><p><em>That evening…<em>

"I guess Koizumi-sempai was right," Shinichi murmured to himself as he went to get Kaito. He didn't see him in his room, so he pushed gently against the picture of their father, as Kaito had described the other day. It moved easily and Shinichi looked down the hole it revealed. He could see light coming from maybe seven meters (roughly 23 feet) below. He decided to call down first.

"Hey, Kaito, are you down there?"

There was a clatter of several things dropping. "Oh, Shinichi! Yes I am, but you don't have to come down here just yet. I'll go up to you."

"Well, I kind of wanted to see that place you found."

Kaito heard the yearning in his brother's tone and understood. All Shinichi wanted to do was see the place their dad had hidden his heritage. He knew the feeling. Their dad had left so little in material items, but so much in memories. Kaito would have called Shinichi down in a heartbeat. But if he saw what Kaito was planning…

Kaito quickly put the things he was working on onto a shelf. There, now it looked like a part of the rest of the stuff down here. He called back up to Shinichi, "Okay, then you can come down now if you want."

There was a whooshing sound and Shinichi fell onto the white mattress at the bottom of the shaft. His eyes went wide just as Kaito's had as he took in everything around him. Kaito let him have a few moments to look at all of the articles that covered just about every spare foot of space in the underground room.

"So this was Dad's lair?" Shinichi said breathlessly.

"I guess you could call it that. He left a whole bunch of gadgets and equipment and stuff. This place has so many cool things that you could spend hours looking at it all and still not see everything. Oooh!" A thought suddenly occurred to him. "We could play 'I Spy,' Shinichi!" That broke his brother out of his trance. He gave him an icy glance.

"We have more important things to talk about right now than playing kid games. I found out about that exhibition. I also found a reliable lead to the legend. But," he still seemed distracted by the amazing world beneath their house. "We should probably move somewhere else to talk about it. I think if we stay here, we'll be too distracted to think." He thought a moment, then added playfully, "You know, even if we did play 'I Spy,' I don't think we'd finish for a long time."

* * *

><p>"All right Kaito, listen. Koizumi-sempai was right about the times. In two weeks, a huge jewel exhibition featuring some of the most impressive, and mysterious, gemstones in the world, is going to come to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. There's a long list of them, but there are plenty of gems that might be Pandora. It'll be here for only two weeks, though, so it'll almost certainly be packed. Still, we should try to get there on the first day, so we can start eliminating diamonds from our list of possibilities. I'm still not sure how, though…but maybe we can find out from their histories."<p>

Kaito agreed silently. Actually, he had his own idea of how to be positive which diamonds weren't Pandora, but he wasn't about to tell Shinichi yet. His twin would probably try to talk him out of it, but it was the only sure method.

"And as for Pandora, I've found the name of a myths and legends book that might tell us more about what it is and how it works. We need to know more about the diamond's properties and supposed powers if we don't want to blindly run into the situation."

"Yeah, you do that. I'll help whenever I can, but I guess this is the most we can do for now."

"Oh, and Kaito?"

"Hmm?"

"This time, we shouldn't bring the Detective Club into this, right? I mean, it's a family matter. And it's not like it's going to be really dangerous or anything. We're just going to be checking out gems, right?"

"I know. This is just you, me, Mom, and Jii-chan."

"Jii-_chan_?"

"That's right. And don't worry. Nothing dangerous will happen."

* * *

><p><em>Two weeks later, the night before the exhibition opens…<em>

The man in the black suit sat alone in his car, looking outside at the huge posters advertising the famous gem exhibition. He had heard about it a while ago, and the organization told him to find a way to check all of the possibilities for the one they were seeking. Too bad they hadn't found any good thieves in the past few years. Any promising ones had either declined or been arrested. Ever since that one all those years ago…

He gritted his teeth. That magician-thief. He had been a fool to try to escape them. And he had paid the price for it with his life. No one could truly escape them once they set their eyes on them.

He stared at the windows again. It would only be a few hours until he could go inside with the crowds. He knew exactly what he had to do. His initial job would be to scout out where all the diamonds were and chart it out for their thieves to obtain later. Of course, he would still be going along then to ensure the plan went smoothly and to prevent double-crossing.

The man now noticed someone else who was outside. He leaned forward to see. It was a young person, a teenager. He was walking along the street on the other side of the moderately busy road. As he passed the museum, he glanced at the building. It looked casual, but the man felt that there was more than curiosity behind that gesture. It was like that short moment when a predator would choose his prey.

Something was stirring in the man's chest. There was something about this kid that felt, no, _smelled, _familiar. What was it? He thought back to that time, when he was with that man with the unreadable face. That man who was like a predator that never showed his claws. That man, the magician-thief.

This kid was just like him.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Just for reference, I don't have anything to do with the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and I'm not endorsing them, or bashing them, or encouraging you to steal from them. Please be a good, upstanding citizen and help your fellow human by reviewing her humble story. Thank you in advance (bows).<strong>


	17. First Day

_Kimiko: There's a reason for my fast uploads. 1) I'm on break from school; 2) I'm not doing my school work I was assigned over break; and 3) I'm only writing this story right now, which is possessing my mind! Oh, that was three reasons._

**First Day**

_Flashback to about two weeks ago…_

"Kaito, I found it!" Kaito dropped his magazine and moved over to where Shinichi was pouring over the old book he had somehow found in the public library. "This is kind of vague, but it does mention a diamond that has a power to grant immortality."

"What does it say?" Kaito asked, remembering to keep his voice down. He didn't want everyone at the library to hear about what they were researching. Looking over Shinichi's shoulder, he saw the book was written in some foreign language.

"Well, it's an old journal from a man who traveled the world to preserve legends. He's talking about something that sounds a lot like the Pandora diamond. Translated, it says, 'This is another legend I've never heard of. The man is reluctant to tell me more, but I was able to hear most of it. There is a gemstone hidden within a larger gemstone that will glow crimson when held under the light of the moon. And once every ten-thousand years, when a special comet comes to Earth, the gemstone will cry under the light. These tears will let a man live forever. I will try to learn more about this.'"

"Is there any more?"

"No, it seems like he couldn't find the person who told him the legend later. He decided it might have been a prank and didn't mention it again. But it sounds a whole lot like Pandora, right? And it at least gives a place and time period to work around."

"I guess so. But it doesn't talk about when the comet comes."

"That doesn't matter. As long as we find it before that organization and destroy it, we won't have to worry about the comet. Even though it's hard to believe that a diamond can cry tears which grant immortality, we still need to keep it out of the hands of anyone else. It's what Dad wanted."

"Yeah," Kaito thought hard about this new information. So Pandora was a diamond inside another diamond that glowed red in the moonlight. That was only a little more information than they already had, but it gave a few more hints at the possible size of the diamond. Now all he had to do was prepare.

* * *

><p><em>Now…<em>

The first day of the famous gem exhibition was fortunately a holiday. That meant that Chikage, Jii, Kaito and Shinichi could all go together to see the diamonds, but it also meant that everyone else around Tokyo who was interested could go. So naturally, it was packed. Though there was good reason for it to be so crowded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum had been intensely proud of the fact that it was going to be housing one of the most impressive collections of rare gems in the world, even if it was only for two weeks. It had advertised to bring in a crowd, and now, here was the crowd.

Shinichi had brought along a notebook to write down information about as many diamonds as he could. Kaito had said earlier that he would use his "intuition" to decide which diamonds might be Pandora. Chikage had abandoned them early on to look at the diamonds with one of the teachers from Beika High and one of her friends, Yukiko Kudo. Jii wasn't sure what he should do. But, seeing as Shinichi would spend far longer than the others would want to stay looking at the signboards more than the diamonds, he decided he would accompany Kaito.

"Young Master Kuroba, how do you intend to locate Pandora without seeing them under the moonlight?"

"Oh, I have my ways. Besides, I do intend to look at them under the moonlight."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there's only one sure-fire way to tell which diamond is Pandora. No offense to Shinichi over there, but collecting history on the gems just isn't the same as actually physically checking them. I plan on coming later to do that, to see them under the moon."

"So you're going to break into the museum for the sake of being solid in your conclusion?"

"Kind of. I'm going to let myself in without their knowledge. Without Shinichi's knowledge, too,"

"I can't allow this. The Master would have wanted you to stay safe."

"Dad told us to finish his work. If the only way to do that is to do this, than I think he can understand."

"Will your brother understand?"

"He'll have to. That'll be the end of it. Listen, Jii-chan, I know you want these people stopped as much as me. I just think that the best way to find Pandora is to do it this way."

Jii was silent for a while. "At least let me help in any way possible. I don't want you to be going into such a situation on your own."

"Sure. I can use your help. I have a plan for how to do this. I think tonight might be best. We want to get this done before that organization makes their move."

"I understand, Young Master."

* * *

><p>Kaito had seen the man in the dark suit a few times that day. He didn't think much of it. The guy seemed creepy, but there were people who were just like that, like Ms. Haibara. He also had a small notebook, like Shinichi, but if Kaito had paid more attention, he would have noticed that the man wasn't writing down history. And he would have also noticed that the man would always turn to face his direction and give him a brief, scary glance before looking away.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Later, a private phone call…<em>

"This is Snake," the man said. He waited for a response, and then continued. "I've found something that might be a hindrance to our operation. If it shows up again, I'd like permission to eliminate it." He waited again. "No, it's not anything like that. It's a person who has the same feel as that man. That Kaitou KID. He feels like he's back from the grave."

"Permission granted." The voice from the phone said. "Boss says to use all steps necessary, but to remember to clean up after yourself. We're too close to finding Pandora to risk being discovered by any law enforcement."

"Got it," the man said, a vicious, bloodthirsty smile creeping over his features. "I'll report back after tonight."

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Oh boy, I really want to finish this. I love the story so much. I was rereading it to make I hadn't left anything out. I suddenly lost myself and felt like I wanted to read more. Then I told myself I was the one writing this. Ah, reality hurts sometimes.<strong>

**Flanagan: Okay, that was an interesting yet pointless comment. To the people who are reading this, we'd love to hear what you have to say!**


	18. Poisonous Bite

_Kimiko: Uh…it took me a while to write this. I didn't know what Kaito does before he goes off to steal-and-return diamonds. So I kinda felt like Kaito at the beginning of this. I just improvised. But I desperately want to get this story done because I have a whole lot of other ideas and I don't want to lose this plot by starting them too soon._

**Poisonous Bite**

Kaito wasn't too sure how to prepare for a heist. He knew that some thieves publicly announced them, but he felt that if he did, it would be like sending up a flare right in front of Shinichi. And he wanted a quiet night in the museum to look through the diamonds he had seen that day. He didn't need police skulking around the museum, looking for him.

His dad's notes didn't mention how he planned to obtain the Pandora diamond, either. Aside from the blueprints he had left behind, there was no clue as to his methods.

Even Jii couldn't help much. He reported that when Kaito's father had usually taken equipment and materials for some of his tricks, especially the disappearing ones. But other than that, there was nothing.

But Kaito didn't really mind going into this without too much knowledge. He was good at improvisation. And besides, it wouldn't be too much trouble. He would just have to deal with the security guards and then he would have the whole night to work with the diamonds. He had looked at the security systems earlier. They were interesting, but after the work he had been doing the past two weeks, he was sure he could handle them.

Kaito had also looked at the equipment and blueprints his dad had left. Some of them would be pretty useful and he had his own creations that he was planning on bringing along. He had built some of them and had altered some of his own to suit the needs he would have tonight.

Everything would have to be compact, though. A few days ago, he realized he would need some sort of disguise. The first thing he thought of was black, but it seemed too cliché. And then he remembered his dad's words. _'Only the best magicians wear white to prove they're the best. Wearing white keeps everyone's attention on your actions and it means you can't get away with any slip-ups.'_ Kaito wasn't going to slip up. But he also wasn't going to perform for an audience. Still, it made an effect on his mind.

He began to put on the outfit. A white suit with a blue shirt and a red tie, a white cape, a white top hat and a monocle. Now get all the gear into it. There. That definitely made the atmosphere.

As promised, Jii came into the room, holding his car keys. He dropped them when he saw Kaito.

"Young Master," he whispered in shock. "You look just like him. Like Master Touichi Kuroba."

"That's good," Kaito said, determined. "But for tonight, I'm going to be the Kaitou KID." He smirked at his reflection in a mirror leaning against the wall.

* * *

><p>Kaito couldn't believe how easy it actually was. The guards seemed more interested in looking at the things they were supposed to be guarding than doing their job. Well, Kaito couldn't really blame them. Anyone would be impressed at the jewels, and the museum had gone to every effort to make their displays absolutely eye-catching. Every spare ray of light in each room was focused on the gems and they sparked like stars.<p>

Kaito managed to get inside almost too easily and took care of the guards quietly. He slipped to the security room and took care of the cameras and alarms, only in the places he was going.

Now for the diamonds.

He decided he might as well start with that first one, which could draw in anyone's attention as they entered the exhibit. He reached for the glass cover…

"I'd really love to keep watching this, but I think I should probably ask you what you're doing. Kaito, or do you want me to call you Kaitou KID?"

Kaito's heart almost stopped. It was Shinichi.

There was no use hiding it. Kaito turned around to face his brother. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"It looks like you're about to steal the Centenary Diamond."

"Well looks are deceiving. I'm not going to steal it; I'm going to hold it under the moonlight to see if it's Pandora."

"I guess looks _are_ deceiving. I thought you would be smarter than this. I didn't realize you would rush into this blindly. Do you realize how many diamonds there are here? Are you going to check them all?"

"Yes, if I have to. I intend to be sure that they aren't Pandora. Dates can't tell you that."

"No, but they can eliminate choices. Listen Kaito, that diamond isn't the one."

"How would you know?"

"How would you hear if you didn't listen in the first place? Was it your first plan to sneak in here and look through all the diamonds one by one?"

"I certainly didn't expect to look at all the plaques to check if they said 'can make people immortal' on them!"

"That's not what I was doing!" Shinichi shook his head in frustration. "Kaito, sooner or later, the museum is going to realize that something is happening overnight! I don't think you can check each diamond here before morning."

"I could if you didn't get in the way. Or do you want to help me?"

"I will help you if you just listen."

"If it involves how you think I might get arrested, I'm not sure if I will listen. I don't need you to mother me. I want to get this done." This was taking too long. It was a clear night, and Kaito wanted to start on the diamonds. But knowing how long Shinichi could take in explaining his views, he decided to take the easy way out. He threw a small flash bomb onto the ground.

When Shinichi could see again, Kaito and the diamond had disappeared.

* * *

><p>Snake was confused when he came into the museum. The guards were all asleep. That must mean someone else was trying to steal something. As long as none of the diamonds were touched. He quickly told his men to stay back for now while he made sure nothing was wrong.<p>

When he got to the exhibit, he could barely see an all-too-nostalgic figure in white. Kaitou KID. Snake had watched him die years ago. Now, there must be someone who was masquerading as him. That must be someone who knew about them and Pandora, because Kaitou KID was a person who only dealt with the organization. He hadn't been around long enough to start stealing diamonds and catch the eye of the public.

He quietly got his handgun out and aimed it at the white-clad thief. Suddenly his target was hidden by a bright flash of light. Snake blinked a few times and saw a teenager in the place of the person in white. Was the thief trying to hide? Had he found the diamond? Moreover, was that the kid who he kept seeing?

It didn't really matter. Snake could find out for himself later. He pulled the trigger.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: I'm going to stay up all night, welcoming in the New Year and writing more PRPM. <strong>

**Flanagan: I'll stay up with you. **


	19. Continue

_Kimiko: I'm so sorry for that cliffhanger. But don't worry, I just can't kill Shinichi. Or Kaito. They're too sexy and amazing. The world would implode without them._

**Continue**

The sound of the shot ripped through Kaito as if he had been the one who was hit. Even with a silencer, it was deafening in his ears. Or was that the pounding of his heart? In his panic, he dropped the diamond he was holding and ran back to where he left Shinichi.

His brother, his beloved twin brother, was on the ground in a widening pool of his own dark red blood. His eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily while gently holding his side. Kaito wanted to move him, get him to a hospital, call 110, DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW, but he knew that a bullet had to come from somewhere. He looked around wildly and saw the source. About six meters away stood a man in black, holding a gun. Kaito's eyes widened.

But he had to stop this man. He couldn't save Shinichi if he got shot too. Kaito pulled out his card gun, a poor match for one that shot lethal bullets, but he wasn't intending to kill. He fired a razor-sharp card at a banner hanging above the man and the large sheet of plastic fell, collapsing over him.

That would buy them enough time to escape.

Kaito knew he shouldn't move Shinichi because he wasn't sure of his condition, but he had to get him away from the area. He took off his cape and wrapped his brother in it, to keep from leaving a blood trail that any of the man's associates could follow. He then picked him up as gently as possible.

He knew it would be best to clean up the blood on the floor, but he had no time right now. He could already hear footsteps coming in his direction. Kaito knew the best escape route now was…the roof. It would take longer while carrying Shinichi, but it was the safest way. He had already planned for it just in case.

Kaito could hardly focus on his journey, however. He could still hear Shinichi's short, ragged breaths. He could feel the blood starting to leak through the cloth that was wrapped around him. He could sense how close Shinichi was to losing his life.

He finally got to the roof. He didn't know if it took a few seconds or a few minutes. His sense of time was off. Kaito's thoughts were filled with worry for Shinichi. He ran to the edge of the building. It wasn't an ideal height for the stunt he was about to pull off, but he didn't care at the moment.

Kaito pulled the cord that would release his hang-glider and took off towards the place where he knew Jii was waiting. The glider seemed so slow, though. Kaito kept glancing down at Shinichi. He still seemed conscious, because his eyes kept fluttering open and shut. As he neared the car, tears started to fall from Kaito's eyes onto Shinichi's face.

"I'm sorry, Shinichi. This is my fault."

They were finally on the ground next to the car. The street was almost completely empty of cars and none of them noticed him while he quickly closed the glider. Jii opened the door, staring horror-struck at Shinichi. Kaito motioned for his help in getting Shinichi onto the back seat.

"Please, Jii," Kaito whispered, climbing into the back to support Shinichi. "Get us to the hospital as fast as you can."

Without any questions, Jii stepped hard on the gas as he began to speed down the road.

* * *

><p>The two were gone when Snake finally got the blasted banner off of himself. His subordinates were here, but they had no idea of where the boys had gone. Snake inwardly fumed. There were two of them. He was slightly taken aback when the other one showed up and hadn't shot right away. Now he had missed them both.<p>

They would probably go to the hospital and call the police. He could track them, but decided against it. A new idea was forming in his mind. He ordered one of his men to clean up the blood that was on the floor and another to reset the security devices from the control room. If the security guards or the cops found out what had happened, they would definitely make it more difficult for him to return.

Those two would also be back. Because if they were in any way related to that Kaitou KID, they couldn't let the Pandora out of their grasp.

And once they found it, he, Snake, would be waiting for them.

He wouldn't miss the second one then.

* * *

><p><em>The next day, early morning…<em>

Kaito had changed in the car, before they got to the hospital so as not to raise suspicion. He had called the police anonymously, saying he was a pedestrian who heard strange noises in the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. He had practically rushed Shinichi into the emergency room and waited in desperation as the doctors and nurses began to take care of him. He had called their mother, explaining the basic situation as she rushed to get to where they were.

He had taken care of everything important, but he still felt uneasy.

Because he had left the pool of Shinichi's blood at the museum.

He might have wondered how difficult it would be to find Pandora now, but he was too worried to care. Shinichi was more important. Shinichi was just past that wall. Shinichi might be dying because Kaito had been so stupid.

* * *

><p><em>Later that day…<em>

Kaito had heard nothing about the shooting at the museum. In fact, the newspapers didn't even mention it. He checked all of the news channels, wondering if he had missed something, but none of them even mentioned an attempted break-in. They were simply announcing that the second day of the special exhibit was open.

"Did I miss something?" Kaito wondered. He was sitting in Shinichi's hospital room, as he had done for the past few hours, brooding as he watched his brother for any sign of movement. "What happened to that mess I left: the blood, the guards, and the downed security?"

Suddenly he noticed Shinichi stirring. He moved forward and held his twin's hand tightly. Somewhere inside himself, Kaito could feel the life in Shinichi. Last night, he had felt the life slipping away, but now it was there, frail, but still alive. Shinichi's eyes slowly opened.

"Kai—?" he barely whispered. He began coughing weakly. Kaito held out a cup of water for him and Shinichi gradually drank it. "Are you all right? I don't remember…last night?"

"You stupid brother," Kaito said softly, feeling his heart hurting all over again. "I'm fine. It's you who's in the hospital with a gunshot wound on your side, and you ask me if I'm okay?"

"It didn't go in," Shinichi pointed out. "I could tell that,"

Kaito smiled, but then the expression fell. "Shinichi, listen to me. I'm so sorry about all this. It's my fault. I should have let you know." He sighed sadly. "It's like that situation with the terrorists all over again, but this time it's my fault and you're the one in trouble again. Worse trouble."

"It's not all you. And if I'm here talking to you now, I'll be okay. But Kaito, we still have something important to do."

"If it's Pandora, forget it. I don't think it's worth risking your life over."

"Dad risked his life."

"Well, we can't do anything about that now. I don't want to lose you, or for you and Mom to lose me. I don't think it's worth this."

"You're right. But we won't risk our lives if we work together. Don't say anything yet," Shinichi warned quietly as Kaito opened his mouth to protest. He took a few deep breaths. "I know Dad didn't want us in danger, but he still left this for us, for Kaito and Shinichi, remember? That means he trusted that we would work together to destroy that damned lump of carbon and put those bastards who shot me in jail where they belong." He paused. "Sorry for that language."

"It's okay," Kaito said, while thinking, _'Wow, Shinichi almost never swears. He must be pretty annoyed at this.'_

"But listen. I figured you'd want to do this anyway, you troublesome brother. But I had hoped you would at least let me help you out. It's true that I don't approve of crimes, but I also don't approve of criminal organizations that shoot and kill people. Did you really think I would be so stubborn as to call the police on you?"

"Now that I think about it now, I guess not."

"Yeah. Now that's over. You trust me and I promise that I'll never put you in a situation that might make either of us have to lose the other, for any reason. Promise?"

Kaito smiled. "I promise, Shinichi."

"Now we can continue this. Even if I'm stuck here, I can still help you out."

"How?"

Shinichi gave a smirk that Kaito recognized as a mirror image of the one he saw in the mirror just a day earlier. "Do you think I was just reading the history for fun? That journal was written about forty-five years ago. So any diamonds cut after that time couldn't be Pandora. The diamond you had last night, the Centenary Diamond, was cut after that time, so that's why it couldn't be Pandora."

"Oh…"

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Sometimes siblings are really stupid when it comes to how the other feels. It also happens in romantic relationships. Maybe it's just hard for people to understand all of the reasons behind other people's actions.<strong>

**Well, once again, I have nothing to do with Gosho Aoyama's work, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, or the Centenary Diamond for that matter. And please don't feel inspired by this to commit crimes.**


	20. Pandora's Jewelry Box

_Kimiko: I feel like I'm counting down to the New Year with these chapters. They just keep coming. I'm so inspired. Thanks for your lovely reviews, Kaida and Alice Edogawa! I love you guys!  
><em>

**Pandora's Jewelry Box**

Shinichi sighed, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry, Kaito. I got upset last night. If I had just told you outright, we wouldn't be in this mess."

Kaito squeezed his brother's hand. "Stop blaming yourself. And stop sighing. It's like you're going to sigh your soul out. Geez, when this is all over, I'm going to do something unspeakably funny to you. You need to forget about all the depressing things. I should too."

"I guess. Just whatever you do, don't make the wound open up. I have enough troubles as it is. Right now I can't help you in any more of your midnight trips to the museum. Speaking of which, I guess security will be even tighter after this, right?"

"Actually, I don't think so," Kaito remembered. "There wasn't anything on the news about the stuff last night. I called the police, but I guess they didn't find anything suspicious."

"Which is even more suspicious," Shinichi mused. His eyes wandered over to Kaito. "I don't suppose you had time to clean everything up?" Kaito shook his head. "That means the guys we ran from did it. That can't be good. They're probably going to use us."

"You mean they're going to wait for us to find Pandora?"

"It's the most reasonable answer." Shinichi frowned, thinking. "We're going to have to find it faster now. Oh, on that matter, I'm going to need you to bring my laptop."

"I don't think the doctors want you working in the hospital, but I'm sure I can sneak it in. What's on it?"

"All the info I got yesterday. I can narrow the Pandora choices down considerably with it. It still might not be them, though."

"But that Akako girl said it was. Weren't you the one who wanted to believe her?"

"I did, didn't I? Well, this _is_ at least the best chance we'll get for a while." He tried to sit up more, but winced in pain as he felt the wound through the painkillers. He leaned back. "Ow, I didn't know how much a bullet—" his eyes widened. "Uh, I suppose Mom knows, right?"

"Yeah, she does. She says she's going to have a very long talk with us once this is all over. Last time I saw her, she was convincing the doctors not to call the police. We both figured that we don't need any extra attention right now."

"That's smart."

"You sell us short, don't you?"

"I don't really mean to."

Kaito laughed. "Just relax for now. I'll get you your computer, but you'd better be asleep when I get back. The last thing we need right now is for you to be collapsing from exhaustion."

"You too, Kaito," Shinichi called after him. "I don't think you got very much rest last night, either."

Kaito looked back as he was about to go out the door. "Okay. But that means you'll have to wait longer." He didn't stay long enough to hear Shinichi's response.

* * *

><p><em>That evening…<em>

When Kaito did get back with the computer and some of his own equipment, he found the room full. His mother and Jii were sitting on the only chairs and all the members of the Detective Club were gathered around Shinichi's bed. Kaito distantly remembered that it was supposed to be a school day. His mom doubtless had made a phone call to the school explaining that neither of them would come to school. And these people had heard about it from one of the teachers.

Shinichi saw Kaito come in and tried to get rid of his friends with little success. They were all determined to stay as long as possible. But then Chikage gently informed them that Shinichi was still recovering and could only handle a few visitors at a time. Still, the tenacious friends managed to stay long enough to wish him well and promise to visit again.

Kaito was glad Shinichi's friends cared so much about him. He wished Shinichi would keep that in mind before he ran off on his own, though he himself wasn't in the position to criticize him.

Shinichi must have explained the situation to the other two, because they came closer as Kaito set up the laptop and handed it to Shinichi. He propped himself up, still wincing when he felt his wound. But Shinichi seemed totally focused.

"All right," he said, pulling up a file. "This has all the data I got. From what I remember, there aren't that many diamonds on display that might fit in our time range. A lot of the diamonds are newer ones. People really want to see them because many haven't been accessible to the public before this. Just give me a minute and I'll have a list of the older ones."

The room waited in silence as Shinichi worked. Kaito was glad to see he was more active than before.

Finally, Shinichi stopped. He turned his computer around. "Here they are. I also put down where they are in the museum."

Kaito, Jii and Chikage all smiled. Chikage hugged her son, saying, "That's my boy. That's my brilliant Shinichi. Now leave the rest to us."

* * *

><p><em>The next day…<em>

Jii and Chikage had warned Kaito not to try the night they got the list. They felt it was a little too risky. Kaito didn't like waiting, especially when he only had a handful of gems to check, but he understood their concern. But there was one annoying thing: he had to go to school.

Everyone was asking where Shinichi was and what had happened. Thankfully, none of the Detective Club guys had spread anything, but there were still rumors. And paying attention in class while he knew he was going to the museum again that night was almost impossible. He tried hard to remember a Poker Face, but he wasn't sure how it turned out. At least the teachers seemed to feel sorry for him and didn't expect too much from him, even Mr. Okiya. Mr. Akai and Ms. Vineyard seemed suspicious of his anxiety, though.

Finally it was time to leave for the not-heist. Kaito was much more careful this time and slipped through the museum like a phantom. He stayed focused on what he was doing and constantly listened for any noises that might be that organization.

Each time he held a diamond up to the moonlight, he desperately hoped it was the one. But after eight misses, he was about to feel discouraged. Then he remembered Shinichi, his mother, Jii and his dad. His motivation.

Kaito shook his head to clear it. He still had a few on the list. The next one was called the Shah Diamond. It looked interesting, almost completely clear and not cut in an expected fashion. He sneaked it out of its case and brought it to the window.

It glowed red. Kaito's eyes were drawn into it as he stood, amazed. There, in the center, past the carving, was a shadow of a tiny diamond in the shape of an eye. Pandora's eye, ready to weep at the misfortune she brought upon mankind, yet still so influential in deciding mankind's fate.

This was it. He had found Pandora.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Please review! I'm going to try to finish this up soon, but that doesn't mean you have to wait until the end to review. I love hearing your input, and I try to answer any questions you have about the story.<strong>


	21. Power of Magic

_Flanagan: The Shah Diamond actually has a very interesting history. Lots of rulers wanted to have it. It seems like the perfect candidate to hold Pandora. It's almost like the diamond compelled the people to want it._

_Kimiko: And Alice, my dear, Kaito found it fast because he and Shinichi are working together. I guess that's the moral of this story.  
><em>

**Power of Magic**

"Here's that damned lump of carbon, Shin-chan," Kaito whispered to himself. "It's actually really beautiful. It's a shame you can't see this."

The red light was almost hypnotizing. The eye within stared emotionlessly at him. Kaito felt an unfounded urge to keep the gem. He suddenly wanted to hold it and wait for the comet. He wanted to open the forbidden box of tragedies. But Kaito quickly snapped himself out of the spell. He could tell that such a diamond was dangerous even without the flashing red warning. To anyone who saw it like this, it would seem like the big red 'DO NOT PUSH' button that people were always tempted to push anyway.

Now he had to destroy it. He began to reach for the equipment that would do the job, but froze. He could hear faint sounds of movement. He turned around and saw the black-clad men behind him. Thinking fast, Kaito furtively slipped the diamond into his pocket.

"I suppose you've found it now, haven't you, Kaitou KID?" A hard, cruel voice asked. Kaito saw that is belonged to the man behind the group in front of him. "If you hand over the Pandora now, I promise you than I won't shoot you like that kid the other day."

Kaito knew better than to be drawn into his words. He couldn't get mad. He had to focus. This was the tricky part. His mother and Jii had discussed it with him for hours.

"I'm sorry gentlemen, but as the old saying goes, finders keepers. But seeing as how you came all the way out here to see something, I can give you a show!"

With this, Kaito flung down a small ball that exploded on contact with the ground, showering confetti everywhere. The men were temporarily disoriented. Kaito took this moment to shoot at the hands that held their guns. He expertly hit each mark and each gun clattered to the floor. Before they could retrieve them, Kaito let loose his next trick. He set off a small compact explosive. But instead of gunpowder, it let off sticky white foam, which instantly covered everyone except Kaito, who now took another chance. He hurried behind the men (there were only six counting the leader) and pulled masks over their faces, which immediately stuck to the sticky foam. The men forgot about the guns and instead tried to pull the masks off without success. Their hands were now sticking to the masks, too.

Kaito quietly collected the guns and hid them behind a display case. Then he returned his attention to his 'audience.' The masks had no eye slots, and the men were clearly infuriated at this, yelling loudly all the while. Kaito knew it was only a matter of time before they either removed the masks or began attacking with a new weapon that they hadn't revealed yet. But for now, they were blind. He wondered if it was better to hide and call the police on them, or to ensure that they wouldn't move for a while with another trick.

The second option sounded safer for now. Keeping an eye on their movements, he reached into his pockets for another trick. He carefully squeezed out a layer of Jii's special superglue to the floor in several different places.

The men were either flailing around or trying to rip the masks from their faces. Some of them were about to do it too. Kaito quickly knocked each man down to his own respective film of glue. He carefully made sure each man wasn't able to reach anywhere that might hide a weapon.

Now, for the thing his mother insisted on. He pressed a button on his cell phone, hidden in yet another of his pockets. There, now they should inform the police and he had about ten minutes left.

Then he sprayed light shower of water over each man's mask. Underneath, the foam softened and broke down. The masks slipped off and Kaito smiled brightly at his now-captive audience.

Maybe he was overdoing it a little, but he did not want a repeat of two days ago.

"Now, gentlemen," he began with a charming grin, "As I have your attention, I'd like to present you with this night's main event. It's called, 'How to Make the Pandora Diamond Disappear.' And seeing as I am still a novice magician, I may not be able to make it reappear." He paused. The men had started shouting at him again. He didn't like interruptions, but he might as well humor them. They were his audience.

"You fool!"

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Do you have any idea what that diamond can do?"

Kaito smiled and decided he would ignore the rest. "Why of course I know all about Pandora. I know exactly what I'm doing with it. It's embarrassing for a magician to not understand all of his props."

"If you do anything to it, we'll never let it go. We'll hunt you down."

"I'm quite prepared for anything you can do to me. And I'm not letting you escape after this show. There's a group of uniformed people who will be arriving soon who want to speak with you about your business here two days ago. But that's in the future! This show must go on, you know!"

Kaito pulled out the diamond, which had been sitting in a special container that had heated it up significantly. He also procured a tall, clear beaker, set it on the Shah Diamond's empty display case, and poured a chemical into it. He then held the diamond up above the beaker. It was already glowing a faint red from the few beams of moonlight that strayed this far.

For a moment, all eyes were locked on the diamond, the beautiful and damned diamond that could open a forbidden Pandora's Box.

Kaito dropped it into the liquid oxygen.

The chemical reaction worked quicker than he had expected. The diamond began to disintegrate. The men screamed at Kaito to stop and pull it out, but he was fascinated by the display. Maybe he had just been upstaged by his own prop, but this moment was worth it. Kaito felt a deep satisfaction as he watched the diamond slowly disappear into carbon atoms.

The whole beaker was emitting a deep red color by now. Kaito's monocle reflected the diamond that even now was trying to tempt him, crying to be let loose on the world.

But Kaito wasn't about to listen to his prop. _He _was the one who was in control.

Finally, the show was over. The men were silent as the light faded. The beaker now only held liquid.

The Shah Diamond, that held Pandora, was gone.

"Do—do you have any idea what you've done!" The leader said furiously. "You and your stupid magic tricks! Now the only real magic in the world is gone! Is this just a game to you, you magician?"

Kaito smiled again as he began to clean up his stage. "Oh, no. Magic isn't a game to me. You may call it trickery, but it's my life. It's so amazing because it can touch everyone. You've seen the power of magic firsthand. And I'm not talking about the diamond. You saw that it can touch and cover even the most heartless of people. It can blind them long enough for the truth to surface. You see, magic's friend and partner is truth, reason."

In the angry silence that followed, Kaito could hear the faint sirens in the distance.

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: Yay! It's going to be a happy ending after all! Or will it? Kaitou KID did just stealdestroy one of the most priceless diamonds in the world! Well, I'm sure you can guess what the next one will be. "Kaitou KID, Phantom Thief"!**


	22. Kaitou KID, Phantom Thief

_Kimiko: Ah, I love this story so much…_

**Kaitou Kid, Phantom Thief**

"Just who do you think you are?" The leader growled. He knew he was beaten, but he wanted to take out his frustration in some way.

"Me? I'm Kaitou KID, Phantom Thief. Pleased to make your acquaintance," Kaito bowed deeply and then disappeared in a puff of smoke just as the policemen came rushing into the building. They knew where the intruders probably were. They burst into the gem exhibit, but were completely unprepared for the sight that beheld them.

Their intruders were all stuck to the floor and surrounded by pieces of confetti. The police looked around, checking to see if anything was damaged. They couldn't see anything wrong. Then one young man called out, while standing next to the Shah Diamond case.

"Sir, this one is empty! And there's a note here!"

A man with a thin moustache strode over to him and took the note. _'To my dear friends in the police force: I'm sorry, but I just had to have the Shah Diamond. I think it's much happier now. I also apologize for the short notice. Next time, I'll remember to call before I host a show so you can enjoy it too! Sincerely, Kaitou KID' _There was a doodle of a grinning face with a top hat and monocle next to the signature. The man turned red with anger.

"Is this guy screwing around with us? I'll show him Division Two isn't that easy to play with!" He crumpled up the paper and flung it to the floor in irritation. "I, Ginzou Nakamori, vow here and now: I'll catch this Kaitou KID !"

* * *

><p><em>A few days later…<em>

The whole incident at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum made global headlines. The owners of the Shah Diamond were in a panic. Kaito tried not to laugh when he heard about the Tokyo police's promise to get it back. Meanwhile, the note left behind at the crime scene was baffling them all. No one knew of any Kaitou KID, and criminal psychologists were already trying to figure out who it was. Kaito considered sending another note, but he knew Shinichi would take him apart, stuff him into a mailing box, and send him to police headquarters if he did.

Shinichi was back from the hospital now, and already worrying about how to make up the work he missed. Kaito told him not to stress so much, but Shinichi would hear none of it. Kaito finally hid the phones and kept him away from the computers to prevent him from calling Heiji about the work he had missed. Their mother had practically strapped him down to his bed, and told him to stay there or go back to the hospital. Shinichi stayed and put up with it.

Jii kept coming over and thanking Kaito for everything he had done. Kaito told him it would all be even if Jii became his own assistant. The older man said he would seriously consider it.

But Kaito knew that his best partner would always be Shinichi. Even though they butted heads so much now, they were still as close as twins should be. They were firmly keeping the promises they made to each other.

Shinichi had considered telling the police the truth about the diamond, but Kaito and Jii advised against it. No one would believe that the Shah Diamond had been a magical gem that could grant immortality. It was just too obscure a legend to take seriously, especially now that it was gone. And the police believed that some new thief had stolen the diamond anyway. A teenager was an unlikely culprit.

Surprisingly, the men that the police had apprehended were silent about everything. They didn't admit to knowing anything about the diamond, but they couldn't deny the attempted murder of Shinichi Kuroba, a 'young, innocent teenage detective who was investigating a possible break-in'. They were charged and convicted of this, and unofficially with assisting the theft of the Shah Diamond. That at least made the owners slightly happier.

Even with all these loose ends tied up, or being worked on, Kaito still felt like something was missing. He wondered about it for a few days and finally came up with a conclusion.

* * *

><p>Kaito sat on the roof with Shinichi. His brother was finally allowed by their mother to move around as long as Kaito kept an eye on him. Kaito had taken this job with mock seriousness, following him like a puppy everywhere, much to Shinichi's exasperation. He even gave Shinichi a plastic eyeball to hang onto when he went into the bathroom.<p>

But their moments on the roof were always more serious. These were the moments that they were just brothers.

"Kaito," Shinichi said softly. "Dad just wants us to follow our passions now, right?"

"Yeah," Kaito agreed. He really didn't want to ruin the moment yet, but Shinichi had reminded him of the revelation he had recently stumbled upon. He would wait for the perfect moment to spring his trap, in a way that would have even impressed his father.

"I mean," his twin continued, "We found the diamond and got rid of it, so Dad's work is done."

"Do you feel like he's left us hanging?"

"I guess so. I suppose I wanted something else that he left, some kind of last advice."

"You just said it. He wants us to be free to do what we want to do." Kaito waited for a few seconds of silence. Not yet, not yet…

Now.

"Hey, Shin-chan~, do you remember what you said a while ago? You promised you'd never put me in a situation where you might lose me, right? I've been thinking about that. You do realize it opens a whole world of opportunities for me, right? So could you be a detective who's after me, but who doesn't actually catch me? I think I really like this whole phantom thief thing, but it'd be even more fun if there's competition."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm Kaitou KID-ding!"

**The End, or Is It?**

* * *

><p><strong>Kimiko: What! It's over already? Well, I'd like to thank all of you for reading this fun adventure with us. [both Kimiko and Flanagan bow]<strong>

**I'm planning on writing short parallel stories, so look forward to more Beika High fics! Bye for now! (^-^)/ (-_-)/**


End file.
